The delicious and eloquent cobb salad can get a lot better with the right dressing. There are several options to use, but matching well with the salad is the difference between delicious and weird.
So, what dressing goes on cobb salad to give it the best taste and texture? A few options come to mind, let’s see what our top options are for the best results.
Top Cobb Salad Dressings You Should Try
Cobb salad is a rich offering of several ingredients and even flavors.
The most common ingredients here are tomato, chopped salad greens, avocado, blue cheese, hard boiled eggs, fried chicken breasts, and chives.
Of course, this ingredient list can increase or decrease depending on your taste and recipe preferences. Using a dressing can jazz up the salad a bit by giving it a flavor boost. Let’s see what our top options are.
1. Ranch Dressing
Ranch dressing is famous for its skill of going along with salads and jazzing them up. It’s no wonder that this dressing is also a hit with cobb salad. Mix some up with your salad and enjoy the tangy taste of the dressing and the wholesome flavors of the salad.
2. French Dressing
French dressing was the OG dressing for cobb salad. As the story goes, restaurant owner Robert Cobb wanted a quick serving of salad and mixed chopped leftovers in his restaurant kitchen.
He tossed the ingredients with French dressing and enjoyed the meal, which eventually became famous as the cobb salad.
Other stories and accounts for this invention mention the creation of the meal by a chef at the restaurant. In any case, what we know for sure is that the Cobb salad was invented at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant in California. It was named after Robert Cobb.
If French dressing was good enough for the first Cobb salad ever made, you can bet it’s still good for the salad!
3. Thousand Island Dressing
Famous as the thousand island dressing is, it might as well be a whole bunch of dressings and recipes by itself. There are several ways of preparing this dressing and quite some freedom with its ingredients.
Conventional ingredients include some mayonnaise with ketchup or tomato paste, white vinegar or pickle relish. You can substitute the vinegar for lemon juice if you prefer. The dressing also uses some pepper flakes and fresh minced onions or shallots.
Those ingredients promise to make a delicious and tasteful dressing that’s sure to add more life and vigor to the cobb salad.
4. Oil And Vinegar
Go the simple route and pick oil and vinegar as the dressing for the cobb salad. Most cobb salad is rich enough in ingredients and can get by without a blast of dressing.
Though simple ingredients, oil and vinegar are not the ones to be understated. Oil brings fat to the salad and vinegar brings acidity and a tangy or tart touch. Your choice of oil and vinegar can really change how the recipe tastes.
Olive oil is a good choice to pick. It’s simple, flavorful, and easily available. For the vinegar, you could choose something delicate like red wine vinegar or even champagne vinegar. Well, you could make do with white vinegar too, but a more delicate vinegar does wonders for the flavor.
5. Balsamic Vinegar
Speaking of using vinegars to amp up the flavors of the cobb salad, using balsamic vinegar alone could do the trick! Balsamic vinegar can match with any type of salad and helps the overall flavor quite a lot.
Although this dressing is easy and convenient, I’d recommend using it only if you’re in a pinch. Yes, it works, but the salad could be better!
6. Balsamic Vinaigrette
Balsamic vinegar works pretty good as a dressing for cobb salad. But if you want the flavor in something more delicate, give balsamic vinaigrette a try.
The recipe itself is fairly simple and includes balsamic vinegar, honey, olive oil, Dijon mustard, and basil leaves. Of course, adding some salt and pepper will help make the flavor stand out.
7. A More Complex Vinaigrette
This is something of a classic vinaigrette dressing for the cobb salad. It’s a bit more complex than other vinaigrette options, but it’s also more flavorful.
The key ingredients here are red wine vinegar, mustard (dry, Dijon, or English mustard), oil (olive, vegetable, or canola), lemon juice and worcestershire sauce.
For a more pronounced flavor, you can also add a few herbs and ingredients like oregano, thyme, chopped shallots, honey, and sugar.
Once you’ve got the ingredients ready, all you have to do is to chuck them all in a blender. Let it blend until you’ve got the right consistency for the vinaigrette.
8. Thai Cashew Salad Dressing
A lot of salad dressings depend on mayo. But what if you’d rather not have mayo and want a substitute? Well, something like the Thai cashew salad dressing will do the trick.
It’s wonderfully flavorful and will add a whole new dimension to the salad.
The thing to keep in mind here is to be prudent with the quantity. Otherwise, the dressing might end up overpowering the salad’s flavor!
Thai cashew salad dressing is rich in flavor and ingredients. Conventionally, it includes cashews, honey, and lime. It is, however, the presence of the red curry paste that really amps up its flavor to a whole new level.
9. Blue Cheese Dressing
Blue cheese dressing is one of the conventional favorites for cobb salad. And for good reason!
It adds to the texture of the salad, while simultaneously giving its flavor a nice touch. It’s simple, yet delicious. No wonder it’s so popular as a dressing for cobb salad as well as other foods.
10. Caesar Salad Dressing
Caesar salad is one of the more famous salads. And while ranch dressing rules the popularity of salad dressings, caesar salad dressing benefits from the popularity of the salad.
This flavorful dressing is quite a treat and is usually quite enjoyable. Despite its name, caesar salad dressing is good for more than just caesar salad. Case in point: it makes for a wonderful dressing for cobb salad!
Conclusion
If you find yourself short on ideas and wondering what dressing goes on cobb salad, take a look at the suggestions here to get the ball rolling. These flavorful dressings are a great pick for cobb salad and help make its flavor and texture even better!