Southwest Style Cobb Salad with Smoky Chipotle Dressing

California’s Favorite Salad Takes A Road Trip

We can’t get enough of the classic Cobb salad. Loaded with chicken, perfect 6-minute eggs, bacon, avocado and juicy cherry tomatoes, it’s the kind of meal we turn to again and again when the weather warms up. Mostly healthy, really satisfying, and easily adaptable for whatever palates happen to be gathered at our table on any given night, Cobb salad is an easy go-to. But, even our favorite meals need a little refresh now and then, and this Southwestern Cobb salad recipe is just exactly that! We utilize the classic flavors of the American Southwest—the smoky heat of chipotle peppers, sweet grilled corn and hearty black beans—to perk up the classic Los Angeles-born Cobb salad.

California’s Favorite Salad Takes A Road Trip

We can’t get enough of the classic Cobb salad. Loaded with chicken, perfect 6-minute eggs, bacon, avocado and juicy cherry tomatoes, it’s the kind of meal we turn to again and again when the weather warms up. Mostly healthy, really satisfying, and easily adaptable for whatever palates happen to be gathered at our table on any given night, Cobb salad is an easy go-to. But, even our favorite meals need a little refresh now and then, and this Southwestern Cobb salad recipe is just exactly that! We utilize the classic flavors of the American Southwest—the smoky heat of chipotle peppers, sweet grilled corn and hearty black beans—to perk up the classic Los Angeles-born Cobb salad.

How To Make Grilled Chipotle Chicken

Slathering the chicken breasts with smoky chipotle mayo before giving them a nice turn on the grill is one of the main things that makes this salad A) so good and B) Southwest-inspired. The combination of char from the grill and that lovely smoked chile flavor of chipotles just screams southwest. Here’s how to make it:

1. Whip up a batch of Chipotle Mayo, or (in a pinch) buy some.
2. Slather it all over some chicken breasts.
3. Fire up the grill.
4. Grill the chipotle-coated chicken until it reaches gorgeously charred perfection!

The Best Cobb Salad Dressing, Ever.

Cobb salad probably only qualifies as healthy-ish because it’s kind of all about the dressing, and Cobb salad dressing just has to be rich and creamy. There’s something about a hearty, mayo-based dressing that pulls this salad all together. It sort of unifies the many (many) things that top it. For this Southwestern riff, the smoky, slightly spicy dressing is also one of the main things that plants this recipe firmly in those hot, dry, desert-y states. Here’s what’s in it:

• Chipotle mayo
• Olive oil
• Fresh cilantro
• Fresh lime juice
• Pepper
• Smoked paprika
• Cumin
• Honey

How To Make A Southwestern Cobb Salad:

You’ve whipped up a deliciously creamy-zingy-spicy-sweet dressing, grilled your chicken breast (and maybe some corn on the cob, too), fried some bacon and amassed a mess-o-vegetables. It’s time to make a salad! We like to serve this Cobb salad as a big platter, and let people serve themselves from there. It makes for a great, fresh, brightly-colored, summertime main dish, and seems to always illicit ‘oooohs’ and ‘aaahhhs’. Here are a few tips for the assemblage process:

1. Rinse and dry your romaine leaves, then arrange them whole, in a single layer, on a big platter to lay a nice foundation for all of your many Cobb salad toppings.
2. Let the chicken, bacon and corn (if you grilled it) cool at least a little before adding it to the platter. If you put them on top of the romaine too quickly, they’ll wilt the lettuce.
3. You can easily prep this salad way ahead of time, and then all you’ll have to do day-of is assemble. Five days ahead, you can boil your eggs, and make the chipotle mayo and salad dressing. A day or two ahead, grill the chicken and corn, maybe when you’ve got the grill going for some other dinner—we love to make our grills do double-duty, especially if we go to the trouble of firing up the charcoal grill.

Tools You’ll Need:

• A grill
• A small mixing bowl
• A large platter (for serving)
• Salad servers

4 More Hearty Dinner Salad Recipes

Salad for dinner does not necessarily equal deprivation. Salad for dinner can be a lush feast! These four salad recipes prove the point:

• Salmon Niçoise Salad
• Spring Cobb Salad
• Mediterranean Pasta Salad
• Classic Cobb Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

Did You Try It?

We want to know! Snap a photo of your Southwest Cobb salad and maybe even a video of the beautiful people you feed it to. Tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper Happy eating!