Jennifer Aniston's Cobb Salad Recipe

The LA Times had an interview with Courteney Cox in which she mentioned that Jennifer Aniston ate a Cobb Salad on the set of Friends every day. Here’s an excerpt of the article:

"Jennifer and Lisa [Kudrow] and I ate lunch together every single day for 10 years. And we always had the same thing -- a Cobb salad. But it wasn't really a Cobb salad. It was a Cobb salad that Jennifer doctored up with turkey bacon and garbanzo beans and I don't know what. She just has a way with food, which really helps. Because if you're going to eat the same salad every day for 10 years, it'd better be a good salad, right?"

 

So I did a little digging to see if I could find anything else on how she doctored it up.  A traditional Cobb Salad (first introduced at the Brown Derby in LA) has the following:

Lettuce (head lettuce, watercress, chicory, and romaine)

Tomatoes

Crisp bacon

Chicken breast

Hard-cooked eggs

Avocado

Roquefort cheese

Chives

Special Cobb salad vinaigrette

 

Although there are many variations on the dressing used for a Cobb salad, this one is purported to be the one originally used at the Brown Derby:

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 teaspoons salt

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon dry English mustard

1 small clove garlic, finely minced

1/4 cup full-flavored olive oil

3/4 cup salad oil

 

Obviously, if she ate a traditional Cobb Salad every day, she’d look like Fat Monica.  I found these two references to her salad:

“Jennifer Aniston, who acted in the popular TV sitcom Friends as the character "Rachel" from 1994 to 2004, said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that she ate a Cobb salad for lunch every day for the whole duration of the show, "mixing it up a little" by adding onions on Thursdays and Fridays.”

 

“She particularly favors a healthier version of a Cobb salad - switching out red meat and eggs in favor of beans, grilled chicken or turkey and just a touch of Swiss cheese.”

 

So I’m guessing that her salad has:

Tomatoes

Red Onion

Turkey Bacon

Grilled Chicken

Swiss Cheese

Avocado

Cottage Cheese

Chives

Taking a look at the dressing, she definitely wasn’t using the one with ¼ cup of olive oil and ¾ cup of salad oil. I’d have to say she switched this out with a low fat bottled version.