Spring Salmon Caesar Cobb Salad

This Salmon Caesar Cobb Salad is a delicious and fresh take on two classics, the american cobb and the traditional caesar. A bed of romaine is topped with red onion, avocado, hard boiled eggs, shredded parm, perfectly baked salmon and crunchy croutons. And it all gets drizzled with a homemade caesar vinaigrette. It’s so easy to throw together and it couldn’t be more perfect for a warm spring day!

Dare I say spring weather is here to stay??? Fingers crossed! These warmer temps and brighter days are giving me all the spring feels, t-shirt vibes and fresh food cravings! That’s where this salad comes in. Move over warm and cozy comfort meals, it’s time for light, bright and refreshing spring recipes! Nothing tastes better than the first few springtime meals on warmer sunny spring days. And we’re well on our way to seeing more spring season produce pop up in stores and farmers markets, like peas, asparagus, rhubarb and strawberries. Can. Not. Wait! But until then I’m kicking off the preseason with this super tasty Spring Salmon Caesar Cobb Salad.

This salad is a mashup of two of my classic favs, the simple yet amazingly tasty caesar salad and the all-american cobb salad. It starts with a bed of crisp romaine, and rings of red onion, hard boiled eggs, creamy avocado and shredded parmesan are piled on top. And instead of the chicken you might see in a traditional cobb, I added a simple baked salmon. Freshly baked whole grain croutons are tossed in and it’s served with an easy caesar salad vinaigrette. While a classic caesar dressing uses anchovies and an egg, I opted to leave them out so I could keep it simple, quick and weeknight cooking friendly.

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A Story About Salmon and Gentle Nutrition

Why did I choose to add salmon to this salad? Two reasons. One, salmon just feels spring-y. And two, I noticed an opportunity to add some gentle nutrition to our eating. I haven’t written a blog post about how to practice gentle nutrition yet, so stay tuned for that. But if you follow me on social media, hopefully you’ve noticed my approach to nutrition isn’t rigid, restrictive or complicated. And it’s something you get to decide on what works for you.

Eating for nutrition is too often portrayed as a narrow path where you have to zoom in on every individual food choice and subtract foods from the diet. This can become very diet-like, stressful and confusing. A much more positive and helpful approach is to zoom out and look at patterns in the big picture while focusing on what foods you can add into your diet while considering what works for you and your life. This approach allows for way more opportunities to make nutrition choices that are healthful and beneficial to your overall well-being, in a way that feels and tastes good to you.

For example, in this salmon salad scenario I realized we hadn’t been eating much fatty fish after zooming out and thinking about the meals we had been eating over the last couple months. There is a bounty of research showing the benefits of eating seafood. So in considering this, I wanted start adding in more seafood. I now make it a point to make sure there’s some kind of fish we enjoy on the menu when I meal plan, and we started to keep more seafood in the freezer. I also started to experiment with developing more fish recipes, thus a Spring Salmon Caesar Cob Salad was born!

What else is in this Spring Salmon Caesar Cobb Salad?

• EVOO
• Hearty bread – I used a whole wheat boule for the croutons. But any rustic bread will work great.
• Garlic powder – This gives the croutons a little extra flavor.
• Romaine lettuce – So classic in a caesar salad!
• Red onion – Quick tip: submerge your cut onions in a bowl of ice water for about 10 minutes to take some of the bite out.
• Avocado – Add some sliced, cubed, mashed or however you like them avocados.
• Hard boiled eggs – Can’t have a cobb without eggs! Unless you have an aversion to eggs, then just skip em.
• Shredded parmesan – Cobbs have cheese and caesars have parm, so this works in the marrying of the two salads!
• Garlic cloves – Fresh garlic makes for one tasty vinaigrette
• Lemon juice – Love lemon in this dressing. So bright and springy!
• Sherry vinegar – Another acid that brings out a more complex flavor of the vinaigrette. Sherry vinegar is just a little more nutty, rich and not as overpowering as some other vinegars.
• Dijon mustard – Classic in a caesar dressing.
• Worcestershire – Another caesar dressing staple.

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If you make this Spring Salmon Caesar Cobb Salad make sure to leave a comment or give it a rating! And if you’re into taking photos of your food (like me), be sure to give me a tag on Instagram!

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