Classic Chef Salad is ready in just 15 minutes! Full of savory meat, your favorite cheeses, and crisp veggies, this a quick and easy lunch on busy days. You are going to love it!
Class chef salad is one of our favorite lunch go-to’s on busy days. With this salad calling for meat, cheese, and hard boiled eggs, it truly is filling enough to be a meal of its own. We typically have all of these ingredients on hand at any given time for lunches or snacking, making this a cinch to whip together quickly. Leave the dressing off until ready to eat, and you have about 3 days worth of lunches in the fridge. Just portion out what you’re going to eat in one sitting, add on some dressing, and you are ready to go!
Meat Options for Classic Chef Salad:
We love to keep things traditional with ham and turkey. However, you could use also try roast beef or chicken. Use whichever you prefer!
Hard Boiled Eggs:
You can make your own hard boiled eggs or use store-bought in this recipe.
Cheese Options:
Swiss, cheddar, provolone, feta, whatever you have on hand!
Classic Chef Salad vs. Cobb Salad:
Chef salad and Cobb salad are very similar. They both typically include, meat, cheese, hardboiled eggs, and bacon. We typically base our decision of which salad to make on our current stash of ripe avocados! Cobb salad calls for different meat and cheese, and includes those avocados. Rather than a creamy dressing, you are most likely to find a vinaigrette dressing on your Cobb salad. Really, we love them both!
Make Ahead and Storage Instructions:
Chef salad is best eaten fresh. If you want to make it ahead of time, you can toss everything together and leave out the dressing until time to serve. Store in the refrigerator this way for up to 3 days before time to serve. You can store leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours, but salad that already has dressing on it does not keep long in the refrigerator, and will get soggy quickly. We typically do not bother to keep leftovers already smothered in dressing.
If you like this recipe, you may be interested in these other delicious salad recipes:
Classic Chef Salad
Salad
- 6 cups chopped romaine lettuce
- 2 cups mixed salad greens
- 1 medium English cucumber diced
- 1 pint grape tomatoes halved
- 1/2 small red onion sliced
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese (optional)
- 4 hard boiled eggs peeled and sliced
- 4 ounces ham strips or cubes
- 4 ounces turkey strips or cubes
- 4 slices cooked bacon crispy and crumbled
- 4 ounces cheese swiss or cheddar
- 1/2 cup croutons
- 1 cup salad dressing Ranch, Italian, or Blue Cheese
- Add the chopped romaine and baby greens into a large bowl. Toss to combine.
- Top with cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, feta, eggs, meats, cheeses, and croutons.
- Drizzle with dressing. Toss to coat and enjoy!
Nutrition
