(swooshes) (giggles)

- Hey everybody, it's Natasha of Natashaskitchen.com

and today I wanna show you how to make

your new favorite salad.

We're making a chicken Cobb salad,

it is loaded with all of the best ingredients

and you're gonna love this dressing, so let's get started.

(claps)

- [Natasha Voiceover] The only cooking we need to do

in this recipe is the bacon,

so place a medium pan over medium heat

and add six ounces of chopped bacon,

saute that until it's golden brown and crisp.

And I love using the splatter guard to keep my stove

and my clothes clean,

I'll link to the one I have in the notes.

Once your bacon is crispy, transfer that to a separate plate

and set it aside to cool.

You'll need one medium head of romaine lettuce

or about five to six cups chopped.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

Once it's all chopped up, I love to put in a salad spinner

to wash it, then spin it dry.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

(pops)

(chuckles)

Salad spinners are brilliant for green salads,

they save so much time

and you'll never have another wet salad again.

We've had a couple of salad spinners

that have broken on us in the past,

but this is the best one I've tried,

and I will definitely leave a link to it

in the recipe notes.

Spread your prepared lettuce over a large serving platter,

this is gonna form the base of the salad.

Now you'll need two large chicken breasts

from a rotisserie chicken,

and if you saw our most recent video,

we shared how to cook a whole chicken in the Instant Pot,

and it really is just the juiciest and quickest way

to cook a whole chicken.

And if you're in a hurry and wanna save even more time,

you can use a store-bought rotisserie chicken

for this recipe.

Slice the chicken breast into bite-size strips,

then layer it over your romaine lettuce.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

Next, you'll need two large hard-boiled eggs

and make sure you check out our tutorial

on how to boil eggs perfectly every time, it is so easy.

I'll leave a link to that in the notes.

Cut your eggs into fourths and layer them onto your platter.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

Next, thinly slice one half cup of red onion

and I love using red onion because it's mild and flavor

and adds beautiful color to the salad.

Next, we'll need one cup of cherry tomatoes

and cut each of those in half,

it's easiest to do this with a serrated knife.

You can chop up heirloom tomatoes, when they're in season,

but I found that cherry tomatoes taste great all year long.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

Next, we're gonna cut my personal favorite ingredient,

well, next to the bacon, of course, (chuckles)

one large avocado.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

Remove the pit and peel the avocado,

then slice into bite-size pieces.

When you slice, try to keep them in the rows

for a prettier presentation

when you transfer them to the salad.

Add your rows of avocados to the salad platter.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

Next, layer on the rest of the ingredients

that you've prepared,

and for a Cobb salad you can arrange things in strips

or in little bunches like I am here.

All right, we have the tomatoes and the purple onions on.

Next, layer on your cooked crumbled bacon.

(bright upbeat music)

And last but not least, add one half cup

of crumbled blue cheese.

I'm using a Gorgonzola blue cheese

and if you prefer not to use blue cheese,

a feta cheese would work here as well.

And we're gonna finish this off

with a little sprinkle of fresh parsley.

- Oh, that is just the prettiest salad

and it's totally making my mouth water.

But before we can enjoy that,

we're gonna make the most amazing balsamic vinaigrette

and all you need is a little mason jar.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

- [Natasha Voiceover] Add one third cup olive oil.

- And I'm using extra virgin,

because that gives this extra flavor, get it?

Extra, extra, okay (giggles).

Balsamic vinegar, three tablespoons of that,

and then we have our Dijon mustard.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

Just one tablespoon goes a long way.

Press in one fresh garlic clove

and this adds fantastic flavor, so do not skip it.

(grunts)

This is my favorite garlic press right here,

I'll link to it in the notes.

Every bit of garlic, love garlic.

And salt and pepper, just a quarter of teaspoon of salt

and a pinch of black pepper.

Put the lid on and shake, shake, shake,

until it's creamy smooth

(dressing burbles)

That looks perfect.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

Beautiful, you just want to shake it enough,

so that the mustard incorporates really well

into the dressing, yum-yum.

Okay, and then just drizzle it over the salad

right before serving.

That's exactly what we're gonna do.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

Yum, and add the dressing to taste,

you don't have to use all of it.

All right, and I am ridiculously excited

for this taste test (chuckles).

Can you see why?

So, that's exactly what we're gonna do right now.

Here we go, a little bit of everything.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

And of course, a lot of avocado (giggles).

And I personally like a lot of dressing on my salad,

so I'm gonna add just a little drizzle more.

(giggles)

Okay, here I go, get a little bit of everything,

which is hard 'cause there's a lot of stuff in here.

Okay, that looks reasonable (giggles), it's a big bite.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

And a little bit of everything else.

(rhythmic upbeat music)

I'm telling you, this dressing, it's amazing,

make it once and you will not want store-bought again.

This just pulls the whole salad together,

you've got protein from the eggs

and the chicken and the bacon,

is bacon a protein?

I think so (laughs).

And the cheese, of course, there's cheese,

and then you've got the fresh elements:

juicy tomatoes and then the purple onion

which I really like in here, it adds a lot of freshness.

And the cheese, if you're not a big fan of blue cheese,

you can totally use feta here

and it'll still taste really good.

This is perfect for meal planning,

this keeps really well in the refrigerator,

and then you can just add the dressing as you go.

This is so satisfying.

It is a meal in itself, so beautiful for parties,

and I hope it becomes a new favorite for you.

If you guys love this, you have to try

some of our most viral salads right over there

and right down there and make sure,

make sure you click below to subscribe

and when you do, hit the bell icon,

so you'll get notifications every time we post a new video.

We'll see you in our next video!