Like Cobb salad, chef's salad is a traditional American main course salad. However, unlike with Cobb, no individual is specifically recognized as its creator. Food historians are unable to agree on the history or composition of chef's salad. The first-known printed recipe is found in the 1936 second printing of The Joy of Cooking. This recipe includes many of the ingredients used in today's salad with the exception of meat. An earlier recipe for "cook's salad" is found in Arnold Shircliffe's book The Edgewater Beach Hotel Salad Book. In a note accompanying the recipe the author shares a story of the origin of the salad where he refers to the "chef's salad bowl." Despite its unknown origin, the person often credited with popularizing it is Louis Diat, a chef at New York City's Ritz Carlton in the early 1940s.
Recipe Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 cup ham, cooked and diced
- 1 cup turkey, cooked and diced
- 1 cup hard cheese (cheddar, Swiss), diced
- 2 medium tomatoes, diced
- 2 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
- ¼ cup wine vinegar
- ½ tsp ground black pepper
- ½ tsp salt
- ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 6 cups lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
- ½ cup fresh parsley, chopped
- ½ cup olives, chopped
Directions
- Whisk vinegar, salt, and pepper for the dressing.
- Gradually whisk in oil.
- Taste and adjust seasonings.
- Place lettuce on dish and drizzle it with dressing.
- Arrange ham, turkey, cheese, tomatoes, and eggs over lettuce.
- Garnish with parsley and olives.
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