Shrimp Cobb Salad: a Winner for Dinner

Salad.

For dinner.

What do you think? Interesting? Boring? Depends on the ingredients?

Chef Thomas Keller of the famed French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley region said, “Salad can get a bad rap. But if you use high-quality ingredients and treat them with care, it becomes something truly special.”

Chef Alice Waters, a farm-to-table movement pioneer, laid out the best instructions for salads: “Let things taste of what they are.”

But even though these culinary luminaries declared that salads are The Bomb, sometimes the people we cook for don’t necessarily agree. “Ho hum, a salad for dinner,” is probably not an unrecognizable statement, if you are the chief cook in your domain. I’ve heard that a time or two myself.

But there’s nary a complaint about salad for dinner if I go the Shrimp Cobb Salad route. That happens quite often, because we eat a LOT of shrimp here at Glover Gardens, and also at Gumbo Cove, our little cabin on stilts on the Mississippi coast. This salad is the PERFECT thing to do with cooked shrimp, whether it is boiled, baked, broiled or grilled: they are all stellar in the dish.

Shrimp Cobb Salad is extraordinarily easy to prepare and surprisingly sophisticated. We usually present it as a self-serve dish, which allows everyone to cherry-pick their fave ingredients and customize their plated salad.

I’ve published a lot of recipes here with precise amounts and directions, but sometimes, a general set of guidelines is all you need. Any cook worth their salt knows that unless you’re baking or making an emulsion sauce, variations in amounts and ingredients are the spice of life. This recipe is like that, a “keep you between the guardrails” approach rather than a prescriptive set of ingredients and instructions.

Shrimp Cobb Salad General Guidelines: A Menu of Ingredients that Makes a Recipe

Ingredients

Gauge the amounts based on how many you are feeding; you’ve got this!

Other than the greens and the shrimp, all of the other ingredients listed are optional. But be sure to pick at least 6 or 7, to generate the ‘spoiled for choice’ feeling with your diners. 😊

• Greens of some kind; romaine is classic but choose what you like… I like romaine but also get excited about arugula, butter lettuce, spinach, a mix that includes kale…
• Cooked shrimp, at least 6 per person, whether it’s boiled, baked, broiled or grilled; click here for a quick way to roast shrimp in the oven for use in recipes like this
• Tomatoes in bite-sized pieces; I prefer grape tomatoes, halved
• Cheese, which could be feta, colby-jack, cheddar, blue cheese, goat, or another of your favorites, either shredded or crumbled
• Boiled eggs, quartered
• Salami, ham or cooked bacon
• Olives
• A member of the onion family, chopped: green onions, red onion, chives or a combination
• Fresh vegetables, cut into bite-sized pieces, such as cucumber, bell pepper, radishes, or carrots
• Avocado, sliced
• Grilled vegetables, such as zucchini, mushrooms, or asparagus (click here for our recipe for grilled asparagus)
• Garnishes: capers, chopped parsley, roasted nuts such as sliced almonds

Dressing Options

• Red wine vinaigrette (the classic Cobb salad dressing)
• Ranch, my personal fave; here’s our Zippy Cajun Ranch recipe
• Thousand Island, The Grill-Meister’s choice

Instructions

Put the greens in a large bowl so that your diners can serve themselves, or distribute the greens onto the plates you’ll be using. Arrange the salad ingredients in rows on a platter. Include the shrimp on the platter or present it in a separate dish if there isn’t room to put all on one. Have your dressing(s) ready on the side.

Serve by directing your diners to create their own Shrimp Cobb Salad masterpiece. They will be delighted.

Alternatively, put the greens first into a large, shallow bowl, then arrange the other salad ingredients on top. Purists would do this in rows or sections, but it’s fine to distribute them, as well.

Shrimp Cobb Salad Gallery

Below are some of our versions.

A Winner for Dinner

Here’s another version of this delicious salad, plated, and with Smoked Corn Salad on the side.

But there’s really no need for a side dish with Shrimp Cobb Salad, because there are already multiple proteins and vegetables galore. The only thing we complement it with is garlic bread or our Zippy Crostini (recipe here).

Shrimp Cobb Salad—any way you put it together—is a winner for dinner. To mash-up quote Alice Waters and Thomas Keller, it “let’s things taste of what they are” and “becomes something truly special”.

Give it a try and come back to share your own variations!

© 2025, Glover Gardens