Vegan Cobb Salad
Entertaining guests with a Vegan Cobb Salad is easy! Enjoy this beautifully arranged vegan salad with tomatoes, olives, onions, chickpeas, avocados and more.
Friends, a vegan salad served on The Big Board, is this Vegan Cobb Salad, full of fresh flavors and textures. You may love a regular Cobb Salad made with chickpeas, for lunch or dinner, that’s both healthy and satisfying! But this recipe is a dairy-free, egg-free, and gluten-free salad.
Maybe you’ve already tried our Epic Vegan Charcuterie Board with plant-based meatballs. This is such a fun board for game day!
Vegan Cobb Salad
What’s in a cobb salad? Traditionally, a cobb is made with chopped chicken or turkey, tomatoes, hard-cooked eggs, blue cheese, bacon, and lettuce served with a light vinaigrette. What makes this salad vegan? No animal products like diary, meat, eggs, and seafood.
Why we love this salad
- Change it up, the chickpea “egg salad” ingredient for this salad really makes the salad. You won’t believe how good it is.
- If you have guests coming for dinner who eat a plant-based diet, this salad is a hit.
- It’s also great to enjoy even if you don’t follow a vegan diet (soooo good!)
- Such a pretty salad when served on The Big Board (20-inch).
We made this board, inspired by HealthyHappy Life, and made our own adaptions of her amazing salad recipe.
Easy ingredients to make a Vegan Cobb Salad
- Can of chickpeas
- Ground mustard
- Veganaise
- Turmeric
- Salt and pepper
- Batavia lettuce
- Red onion
- Cherry tomatoes
- Avocado
- Minced chives
- Shredded carrots
- Sliced black olives
Ingredients for an easy vegan salad dressing
Oh my, the dressing with avocado oil and maple syrup? Delish!
- Avocado oil
- Maple syrup (or agave nectar)
- Apple cider vinegar
- Lemon juice, plus zest
- Dry mustard
- Worcestershire: buy Vegan brand
- Garlic powder
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
How do you make a Cobb Salad that is Vegan?
Vegan dressing:
-
In small bowl, whisk together all ingredients for dressing thoroughly—make sure the maple syprup (or agave nectar) is fully dissolved. Set aside.
Chickpea mixture:
-
In medium bowl, mash chickpeas roughly with fork. Add in veganaise, mustard, turmeric, and salt and pepper to taste. Continue to mash until ingredients are mixed. Set aside.
The salad:
-
Chop and place veggies on top of lettuce leaves (optional to use a BIG BOARD). Next arrange the chickpea “egg salad” and the rest of the salad ingredients in rows.
-
Garnish with fresh pepper and chives. Enjoy with a drizzle of dressing!
How do you serve?
We love to serve this salad on The Big Board. You can layer the salad ingredients in rows, and then serve the dressing two ways.
Either let guests drizzle their own salad, or you can drizzle the dressing, and serve!
Entertaining Guests with a Vegan Cobb Salad
If you have guests coming or family memebers who are Vegan, then this salad is for you! We love the leftovers, too.
What is a Vegan Diet?
One thing I’ve learned about vegans is they don’t expect you to come up with a brand new meal for them. They are usually good with salad, maybe a hummus appetizer, and even chips and guacamole. My experience is that, just like anyone else, vegans are just grateful to be invited over.
A vegan diet centers on plant-based foods (eating more wholesome food), and cutting out animal products like diary, meat, eggs, and seafood.
I like the idea of hosting a salad bar in general – where guests with varying diets can make their own salad!
Cooking a different diet for guests might give you an initial “panic” but with the amazing Internet now, it’s so easy to find recipes!
We’ll for sure make this recipe again and again!
More vegan recipes to try:
Looking for a quick 5-minute Vegan Coconut Dessert? So good, serve with a premium jelly or make your own compote!
Or this Vegan Pita Tacos Board or an Epic Vegan Hummus Board.
Enjoy!
The Big Board®
Friends, The Big Board® is here! Yes, I’ve partnered with JK Adams, the premier woodmaking company in Vermont, with my own line of RE boards!
- 20-inch round, maple
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- A board with a lip (or raised edged) so the food doesn’t fall off
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Get the Recipe:
Vegan Cobb Salad
Ingredients
Vegan dressing:
- ¼ cup avocado oil
- ¾ Tbsp maple syrup, (or agave nectar)
- 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice, plus 1/2 tsp zest
- 1 tsp. dry mustard
- ½ Tbsp Worcestershire, buy Vegan brand
- ¼ tsp. garlic powder
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Chickpea mixture:
- 1 can chickpeas, drained and washed
- 1 tsp ground mustard
- 1/4 c veganaise
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
- salt and pepper to taste
Salad ingredients:
- 1 head batavia lettuce
- ½ red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
- 1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and cut as desired
- ½ cup shredded carrots
- ⅔ cup sliced black olives
- 3 Tbsp minced chives
Instructions
Make the vegan dressing:
- In small bowl, whisk together all ingredients for dressing thoroughly—make sure the maple syrup is fully dissolved. Set aside.
Make the chickpea mixture:
- In medium bowl, mash chickpeas roughly with fork. Add in veganaise, mustard, turmeric, and salt and pepper to taste. Continue to mash until ingredients are mixed. Set aside.
Make the salad:
- Chop and place veggies on top of lettuce leaves (optional to use a BIG BOARD). Next arrange the chickpea “egg salad” and the rest of the salad ingredients in rows.
- Garnish with fresh pepper and chives. Enjoy with a drizzle of dressing!
Notes
Hello and welcome to my home and table!
I’m Sandy—lover of food, family, cooking, THE BIG BOARD, travel, and bringing people together. Through great recipes and connection around the table, we become better, stronger, and more courageous people. Feasting on Life is real, and every time we do it, we grow a little more. Read more...
Such a salad of amazing beauty!!! I felt like quite the showman serving it to my guests (yet it was so easy) …. and the avocado vegan dressing was DELISH!
I was looking for a different, and interesting vegan salad for my guests who are vegan. Thank goodness I found this one. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe with me.
This cob salad was delicious and everyone loved it.
This was so tasty! Everyone loved the chickpea mix especially. Will be making it again!
I made this the other night, turned out amazing!
Being a vegan is the key to life
Looks delicious! Thanks for the shout-out for my vegan apple crisp!
The hearts of palm are perfect in this. Love.
Love all of these colors! So many of my friends are vegan, so I’m always looking for recipes that work for everyone! :)
Mmmmm…I could eat this salad most any day of the week!
It’s always great to have a few vegetarian, vegan and gluten free recipes at the ready for entertaining. Great salad : )
I’ll be making that. Click. Print.
We are not vegan but eat a handful of vegetarian & vegan meals ever week. I love exploring things in the kitchen these ways!
beautiful salad. I’d go vegan for this. :)
What a beautiful salad. I can’t wait to make it and serve it.
this is a great idea! who wouldn’t want this, vegan or not!?
Agree, Lisa. It was fantastic.
I had this very issue come up when we invited a new couple to our church staff over for dinner! Everything I could think of had cheese or eggs or meat in it! I eventually settled on a burrito bowl type of approach and made meat as one of the toppings. I’ll add this idea to my repertoire! This post is so helpful, Sandy! Thanks for another great post and a very practical suggestion to accommodate all kinds of eaters!!
I don’t mind accommodating at all, as long as I have ideas and enough time to plan! :)
This is a great post Sandy. I did one awhile back (probably needs to be updated), but we have so many friends with dietary preferences or needs now that one can easily get intimidated. I just opted to jump in with both feet and learn new recipes. I’ve posted several on my blog. I’m so glad I did. This recipe sounds yummy. I’ve never had hearts of palm.
http://troyerslovinglife.blogspot.com/2010/04/entertaining-friends-without-limits.html
The hearts of palm actually reminded me of eggs, in a way. Yes, once you do it – it’s less intimidating. Love that you reached out to your friends and did that for them! Good hostess! :)
What a delicious salad and it is always a great idea to be so considerate of your guests.
Oh, you KNOW I have to love this recipe! Having been a vegan for several years now I always am so impressed by people who have us over as guests and prepare something for us well. Of course, I always offer to bring our own food – I think that should be expected of anyone with a special diet. But that said, when someone offers to fix something, it’s so nice. And if they served this salad? I would be in hog heaven! Can I say that as a vegan? You know what I mean!
So, Marly, … can you come for dinner? hee hee :)
now THIS is my kind of salad, Sandy! having followed this style for years, I LOVE to entertain and show people how flavorful plant based can be! my “change” is often when I am cooking for meat eaters, either assigning Jason to cook/grill the meat, and or come up with creative dishes they will enjoy!
this salad looks fantastic.
thanks, girl!
I love this post!!!! We love meat but we have also been eating more vegan, plant-based meals and it is astonishing how any delicious and easy ideas there are when you just get away from the “meat, starch, veg” concept of what a meal should be. Great post!
We love meat, too, but we’re eating less of it (and less red, for sure). Thanks Liz!