This delicious salad starts with a five-ingredient vinaigrette.
Key Points
- Ina Garten’s Lobster Cobb Salad is an elegant, easy summer meal with customizable protein options.
- The salad features fresh, summery ingredients like avocado, tomato, arugula and a simple vinaigrette.
- Swap in options like shrimp, chicken or roasted chickpeas if you’d rather skip the lobster.
Having a few easy summer lunches on rotation is a great way to keep your days organized during a season of pool days, beach trips and general fun in the sun. After all, it’s tough to find the time (or the energy) to make a super-involved meal for lunch on a hot summer day. That’s why we love easy summer meals like crunchy salads and versatile sandwiches.
Turns out, Ina Garten is also a fan of summer lunches that are filling and delicious but also easy to put together. In her latest Substack newsletter, Garten shared a bit of what she’s been up to this summer with her readers. From July Fourth dinners with friends to taking in Broadway shows, the Barefoot Contessa has been busy—but not too busy to get together with friends for a quick summertime meal.
“I hosted some friends for lunch last week,” Garten wrote in the newsletter, “and it was the perfect opportunity to make one of my favorite summer recipes—Lobster Cobb Salad.”
If the recipe title of that salad doesn’t intrigue you, the photo Garten shares on her website just might. The salad is topped with plenty of flavorful ingredients that always make us think of summer—creamy avocado, juicy tomato and tender lobster among them.
“It’s really elegant and easy,” she continued. “I think of this salad as a special summer meal when you have guests you really want to make happy. And if lobster is too expensive, you can always substitute chicken or shrimp.”
A summer salad that feels elegant but is easy to throw together? Sign us up. And we love that you can change out the protein depending on guests’ dietary restrictions, the cost of certain ingredients or what you’ve already got on hand at home. Opting for chilled cooked shrimp or a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket deli could make this simple salad even easier to make.
Garden’s Lobster Cobb Salad serves four to six people and starts with a homemade dressing, which you could make in advance to save time. You’ll just need a few pantry staples for this dressing—to make it, combine Dijon mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and whisk until emulsified.
To make the salad, peel, pit and dice two avocados, tossing them with a bit of lemon juice to keep them from browning so quickly. Dice your cooked lobster meat—or your protein of choice—and place the meat into a salad bowl with a pint of cherry tomatoes, either halved or quartered. Toss this mixture in a bit of vinaigrette, just enough to moisten the tomatoes and meat.
Add diced avocado, crumbled bacon, blue cheese crumbles and arugula to the bowl and mix again, adding a bit more vinaigrette if necessary. Serve the salad at room temperature with extra dressing on the side.
With a salad this classic, you could get away with making some edits, if need be. Toss in feta instead of blue cheese, if that’s what you have on hand. Or stretch the greens with some romaine lingering in the fridge. And while Ina recommends chicken or shrimp as a budget-friendlier protein option, vegetarian options like roasted chickpeas or flavorful bites of tofu.
Looking for more Garten-approved salad recipes? Check out the Barefoot Contessa’s Heirloom Tomato & Blue Cheese Salad or her go-to way of making the perfect Caprese salad every time. And if you need a few more options for your summer salad lineup, we’ve got you covered.
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