Looking to up your salad game? Start with cobb salad and all its fantastic toppings and add some lobster! This Lobster Cobb Salad will easily become your new go-to meal for easy entertaining all year long!
I’m not going to sugar coat things here.
I LOVE lobster! It’s one of those splurge-type ingredients that I’ll plan my weekly grocery budget around just so I can work it into a meal every so often.
Well, I should clarify that. When lobster costs less per pound ($6.50/lb this summer!) than organic chicken and most cuts of steak, it’s not so difficult to work into the budget. Living in Maine definitely has its perks!
Anyway, I became a big fan of the cobb salad a few years ago when I found this amazing (and genius!) Caesar dressing. Rather than making a, you know, Caesar salad, I made a huge cobb salad with all of the usual suspect toppings.
And while there’s nothing at all wrong with a great traditional cobb salad, I’ve always wanted to make a big dinner salad topped with lobster. The main concern for me about making a salad like this was what kind of dressing to pair with it.
A creamy, mayonnaise or sour cream dressing wouldn’t work. I wasn’t going for a cold lobster salad here.
A vinaigrette it was! It needed to be light and fresh, and definitely heavy on the lemon. I thought about my fresh herb vinaigrette but I also didn’t want the lobster to be overshadowed by lots of other flavors.
So Ina to the rescue again! Geez, how many times have I said that over the years?
Way back in one of Ina Garten’s early cookbooks, she’s got a recipe for Lobster Cobb Salad. She claims it’s what you should make when you’re inviting your mother-in-law over for lunch.
I literally guffawed at that.
MY mom would be the perfect person to make this salad for. And you know what? She actually made it with me!
She helped me steam the lobster, prepped a whole bunch of the ingredients, and scooped and sliced the avocado like a pro so I could photograph this recipe. Cooking with my mom has always been one of my favorite things!
Ingredients for Lobster Cobb Salad
For this cobb salad, I went with a lot of the regular cobb salad ingredients and in full disclosure: they’re a little different from Ina’s recipe. I know Ina’s purists out there may scoff at my changes but hey! That’s the beauty of cooking! Make it the way YOU want it!
What I did use from the Ina Garten salad is the lemon vinaigrette recipe. It was exactly the type of dressing I was going for to top this salad: light, fresh, and excellent with lobster.
This is the grocery list you’ll need for my lobster cobb salad recipe. As with all salad, feel free to change things up to make it your own! And be sure to scroll down to the recipe card below for the full ingredient list!
- fresh arugula
- hard boiled eggs
- avocado
- cherry tomatoes
- fresh pea pods
- bacon
- crumbled blue cheese
- cooked lobster
For the lemon vinaigrette, you’ll need:
- Dijon mustard
- fresh lemon juice
- olive oil
- Kosher salt and black pepper
What to Buy: Fresh or Cooked Lobster?
Obviously, buying cooked lobster is going to be the easiest and fastest way to assemble this salad. But it comes with a hefty price tag.
Cooked lobster is often more than 5x the price as fresh whole lobsters are per pound. I’ve seen it here in Maine for over $50 per pound. Yikes!!
So while it takes more time to cook whole lobster and then pick the lobster meat from the shells – and some knowledge about how to do that as well! – it’s also way less expensive.
My mom and I made the steaming and picking into a fun activity on a hot July day. We picked the lobsters on the deck, which made clean up easy (keep the hose nearby!).
And then, after we thoroughly covered ourselves in lobster juice, cleaned up the mess, and stuck the picked lobster in the fridge, we jumped in the pool to hit refresh.
How Many Whole Lobsters Do You Need for 1 1/2 pounds of Cooked Lobster Meat?
The age-old question I still always have to figure out when I’m make a lobster recipe, is how many whole lobsters do I need for the amount of lobster meat a recipe calls for? Here’s some help for you on this:
- This recipe serves 4 to 6 people. You’ll need 1 1/2 pounds of cooked lobster meat for this many servings.
- One whole lobster weighing 1 1/2 pounds will yield about 6 to 7 ounces of picked lobster meat from the tail, claws, main two legs (not including the smaller spindly legs).
- So, for this recipe, you’ll need four 1 1/2-pound lobsters.
- If you have any leftover lobster after serving this salad, you can freeze it or use it in corn or seafood chowder, lobster rolls, or lobster BLTs.
More Lobster Recipes
- How to Steam Lobster
- Lobster Mac and Cheese Recipe
- New England Seafood Chowder
- Creamy Lobster and Shells
- 6 Minute Instant Pot Lobster Risotto
- Lobster Corn Chowder
- Seafood Gratin (Seafood Casserole)
- Lobster Fra Diavolo
- Scallops Provençal
Lobster Cobb Salad
Ingredients
For the lemon vinaigrette:
- 1 ½ tbsp Dijon mustard
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons)
- 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp Kosher salt
- ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
For the salad:
- 10 oz fresh arugula, washed and dried
- 4 to 6 hard boiled eggs, peeled and halved or quartered
- 2 ripe avocados, pits removed, scooped out, and sliced thin
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes
- 8 oz fresh pea pods (snap peas)
- 6 oz bacon, cooked until crispy and then roughly crumbled
- 4 to 6 oz crumbled blue cheese
- 1 ½ lbs cooked lobster meat (See Note below)
Instructions
- To make the vinaigrette: Whisk the mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper together in a small bowl or 2-cup glass measuring cup. Set aside.
- To assemble the salad: Divide the arugula between the plates. Top with the salad toppings and drizzle each with some of the vinaigrette.
Notes
You'll need 1 ½ lbs of lobster meat for this salad, not a 1 ½ lb lobster. If you cook your own lobster to use for this salad, you'll need five 1 ½ lb lobsters. You can also cook 8 lobster tails instead of whole lobsters but keep in mind that lobster tails cost more by weight than whole lobsters do.
adapted from Ina Garten