IMHO, healthy Cobb salads are pretty much the most satisfying salads on the planet! This veggie-filled best Cobb salad offers the richness of eggs, blue cheese, and a crumble of bacon along with protein-packed chicken. If you find a plate of eggs and bacon filling, wait until you try this meal prep salad for weight loss. It’s under 500 calories with 33 grams of protein and 7 grams net carbs!
Whether you currently have a weight loss goal or are just seeking culinary deliciousness, you are going to love what I have for you today. Cobb salad was one of my favorite meals to prep during my weight loss journey. It’s tasty, colorful, satisfying… I think it has earned its “best” title.
Feel free to make tweaks to this simple weekday food as it fits your budget and tastebuds. You can use store bought dressing instead of homemade. Or you can swap out the bleu cheese crumbles for goat cheese.
Salad meal prep for weight loss is also a super way to use up your leftovers. For example, use the leftover chicken from this warm and comforting roasted chicken to make your Cobb salad meal prep. You’ll prevent food waste, and save money on takeout when you make batch salads for lunch.
Jump to:
- 📋 Cobb Salad Calories
- ⭐ Healthy Salads: Benefits for Weight Loss
- 🥘 Meal Prep Salads for Weight Loss Ingredients
- 🍽 Meal Prep Salad Containers
- 🔪 How to Make a Cobb Salad
- 🌡️ How long do meal prep salads last?
- 💭 Expert Tips from a Dietitian
- FAQs
- 👩🏻🍳 Other Salad Recipes for Losing Weight
- 👨🍳 More Meal Prep Recipes
- The Disclaimer…
- 📖 Recipe
- Meal Prep Salads for Weight Loss (Healthy Cobb Salad Recipe)
- 💬 Comments
📋 Cobb Salad Calories
How many calories in Cobb salad? One serving of this meal prep salad for weight loss recipe has 413 calories, 7 grams net carbs, and 32.9 grams protein. It’s a great pick if you are looking for under 500 calorie meals.
⭐ Healthy Salads: Benefits for Weight Loss
What are the health benefits of making meal prep salads for weight loss? Here's why you might want to start meal prepping salads:
- Low calorie salads: Salads are the perfect healthy low calorie meal option. You can easily make a big salad for under 500 calories that’s filled with tasty ingredients.
- Filling meal prep salads: Technically, any food can be low calorie if the portion size is small enough. With salads, you typically get a high volume meal for very few calories. The fluid and fiber-packed veggies will help to keep your stomach full.
- Keto salad meal prep: Following a special diet? This meal prep salad recipe is also low carb, keto, gluten free, and grain free.
- Phytonutrients: The veggies in this recipe contain beneficial phytochemicals that may not be present in animal-based foods. Sure, you can eat low calorie snacks (like sugar-free gelatin) but they don't give you the nutrients you need to thrive.
- High protein salad meal prep: The eggs and chicken in this recipe are protein powerhouses. Aside from fluid and fiber, protein is another diet component that will help you feel full.
- Vitamin and mineral benefits: Most salads (including this one) are packed with essential vitamins and minerals. You’re getting antioxidants, such as vitamin A and vitamin C, as well as heart-healthy minerals, including potassium.
- Delicious: One of the wonderful things about salads is how forgiving they are. You can tweak this recipe, adding and subtracting foods you like. (Just remember that any changes you make will alter the nutrition information for the recipe.)
🥘 Meal Prep Salads for Weight Loss Ingredients
What are the ingredients for meal prep salads for weight loss? Here’s your shopping list:
- Leftover cooked and chopped chicken breast (turkey may be substituted)
- Hardboiled eggs
- Cooked bacon
- Spring mix (or your favorite baby lettuce or other leafy salad greens)
- Avocado
- Fresh lime juice
- Crumbled blue cheese
- Grape tomatoes
- Persian cucumbers (mini cucumbers)
- Scallion
- Chives
- Red wine vinegar
- Extra virgin olive oil (AKA EVOO)
- Dijon mustard
- Minced garlic clove
Find specific quantities of ingredients in the recipe card at the end of the article!
We’re going to sprinkle the avocado with a little lime juice to help prevent browning. If you’re picky about leftover avocado, use individual guacamole cups with your salad instead.
I recommend having all of your ingredients cooked and ready before you begin this recipe. I like to make firm hard boiled eggs for this recipe, boiled for 10 minutes. Jammy eggs are delish, but they aren’t my favorite for meal prep salads.
You can cook the bacon as crispy as you like. If you don’t have leftover chicken, you can use rotisserie chicken breast from the grocery store.
🍽 Meal Prep Salad Containers
To make this Cobb salad meal prep, you need a good knife, a jar (to shake up the dressing), and salad containers. Here are my favorite meal prep salad containers. They can hold very big salads and come with individual lidded salad dressing containers.
You can also use Mason jars, food-safe Pyrex, or Tupperware containers for meal prep salads. Just make sure to store the dressing separately to keep the lettuce from getting soggy or wilted.
🔪 How to Make a Cobb Salad
Begin by prepping your ingredients. Chop the chicken, avocado, Persian cucumbers, chives, and scallions. Halve the hard-boiled eggs and grape tomatoes. Crumble the cooked bacon and blue cheese.
Sprinkle the lime juice over the chopped avocado to help prevent browning.
Divide the leafy greens between the four containers or salad bowls. Add ¼ of the eggs, bacon, chicken, avocado, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, chives, and scallions to each of the containers.
Put the vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and garlic in a small canning jar. Put the lid on the jar and give it a good shake. Divide the dressing evenly between four dressing cups.
Dress your salad right before serving. Enjoy!
🌡️ How long do meal prep salads last?
Should you prepare meal prep salads for the week? I don't recommend meal prepping salads 6 or 7 days ahead. It is best to make meal prep salads 3-4 days ahead for food safety reasons.
How to meal prep salads and keep them fresh? The best way to keep meal prep salads fresh is to keep liquid and solid ingredients separate. This means keeping the salad lettuce undressed until right before serving.
I like using separate lidded salad dressing cups for meal preps. If you’re making mason jar salads, put the dressing in the jar first and the lettuce last. When you dump the salad into a bowl, the lettuce will be on bottom and dressing over the top. Perfect!
Never try to freeze your meal prep salads. The lettuce will turn into a horrible mushy mess when defrosted.
💭 Expert Tips from a Dietitian
This is a level 1 recipe (may help support fat loss). This salad gives you 33 grams of protein and under 10 net carbs for under 500 calories. Whether you are focusing specifically on lowering calories or carbs for weight loss, this one is a great choice. Additionally, it is packed with a rainbow of phytochemical-rich vegetables, something that makes dietitians happy.
Maintaining a healthy weight is one of the best health moves you can make. In terms of reducing cancer risk, it is far more important than whether you eat the occasional slice of bacon. (Especially if including some bacon here and there helps you to enjoy and include more veggies in the diet.)
A lot of people aren’t making the factors that can have the largest positive impact on health a priority. There is a lot of noise to distract the public from the basic nutrition and fitness advice that would be most helpful.
Though weight loss itself isn’t a behavior, the lifestyle behaviors that promote weight loss can be targeted. One first step might be to reconfigure your meals to feel more satisfying (often high in protein, fiber, and water volume). This may help you to maintain the calorie deficit needed for weight loss.
What type of salad do you consider to be the most satisfying salad on the planet? Even if your answer isn’t Cobb, I hope you feel like this is the best Cobb salad you’ve ever made!
FAQs
"Healthy” always depends on the needs of the person who is looking for healthy options. Cobb salads are nutritious and filled with filling and health-promoting whole foods. However, if you want to lower the saturated fat in your diet, bacon and blue cheese aren’t the best choices.
You can make a high calorie salad by adding more fat (cheese and dressing) plus foods from the grain group. There’s a 1000+ calorie quesadilla salad at a restaurant here that is a great example of what this can look like. Throw some cheesy quesadillas or croutons on your salad (or both) and the calories tend to add up quickly!
To make vegetarian meal prep salads, you’ll need to swap out the bacon and chicken for veggie-friendly proteins. You can use air fryer marinated tempeh, edamame, air fryer crispy tofu, Parmesan chickpeas, or your favorite plant-based proteins.
Can you lose weight eating salads every day? Just about any diet where you can maintain a calorie deficit can (eventually) help you lose weight. That said, a diet of only salads doesn’t sound very sustainable. To keep the weight off, it’s better to find an eating pattern you can maintain over the long-term.
Since you need to maintain a calorie deficit to lose weight, the best salad for weight loss will help you feel full longer on fewer calories. (Yes, for some, this would be a low carb salad.) Ideally, the salad will also be packed with nutrient-dense foods to help keep you healthy and free of nutrient deficiencies.
👩🏻🍳 Other Salad Recipes for Losing Weight
Greek salad, chicken salad, taco salad... you can have a different salad for lunch every week this month! Here are some more weight loss salad ideas:
This next recipe is the beginnings of an AMAZING low calorie taco salad...
👨🍳 More Meal Prep Recipes
Is meal prepping good for weight loss? I think so! Here are some other meal prep ideas to use in weight loss meals:
- Air Fryer BBQ Chicken Breast
- Air Fryer Roast Beef
- Kodiak Blueberry Muffins
- Kodiak Cakes Banana Bread
- Air Fryer Pork Roast
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The Disclaimer…
All recipes on this website may or may not be appropriate for you, depending on your medical needs and personal preferences. Consult with a registered dietitian or your physician if you need help determining the dietary pattern that may be best for you.
The nutrition information is an estimate provided as a courtesy. It will differ depending on the specific brands and ingredients that you use. Calorie information on food labels may be wildly inaccurate, so please don't sweat the numbers too much.
For more information on how the three recipe levels may help with a weight management goal, refer to my overnight oats no sugar post. Let's get cooking!
📖 Recipe
Meal Prep Salads for Weight Loss (Healthy Cobb Salad Recipe)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 8 cups leafy greens (I used Trader Joe's spring mix)
- 4 large eggs, hard-boiled, peeled
- 4 slices cooked bacon
- 12 ounces chicken breast, cooked (340 grams)
- 1 avocado
- ½ lime, juiced
- 2 ounces blue stilton cheese, crumbled (57 grams)
- 1 lb grape tomatoes (454 grams)
- 2 tablespoons chives, chopped
- 4 Persian cucumbers
- 1 scallion
- 4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
Instructions
- Tip! You need four salad containers and four dressing cups for this meal prep.
- Chop the chicken, avocado, Persian cucumbers, chives, and scallions. Halve the hard-boiled eggs and grape tomatoes. Crumble the cooked bacon and blue cheese.
- Sprinkle the lime juice on the avocado to help keep it from browning.
- Divide the leafy greens between the four containers or salad bowls. Add ¼ of the eggs, bacon, chicken, avocado, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, chives, and scallions to each of the containers.
- Put the vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and garlic in a small canning jar. Put the lid on the jar and give it a good shake. Divide the dressing evenly between four dressing cups.
- Dress your salad right before serving. Enjoy!
Terrified Amateur says
Looks scrumptious, Summer! Loaded with so many spectacular goodies, from the avocados, to the tomatoes, to the Dijon....oh my! There's just no way all this can be good for me, but somehow...
Have to take a pass on the eggs, as hard-boileds aren't a favorite (to understate it), but everything else more than makes up for it! Especially those tomatoes. Aren't grape tomatoes awesome? By mid-winter, most tomatoes here in the Northeast are about as tasty as cardboard, but grapes are still pretty spectacular. Maybe not as good as picking them off the vine in late July, but close.
Oh, about dietitians' efforts - you've heard the observation about firefighters being ones who dash into a burning building while everyone else flees? The same applies to nutritionists, who usually are pressed into service only after someone has suffered a dire fate. It takes courage and creativity to do what you do, and I applaud you for it!
Summer Yule says
Thank you! If you aren't into the eggs, I think it would be fine to skip them here. My son has never been a big fan of eggs either. I've figured out a few ways he'll eat them over time. For a number of years, he'd get huevos rancheros minus the huevos when I made that dish. 🙂
I've noticed the Heavenly Villagio Marzano Tomatoes at Trader Joe's are really good year-round. They are not what I ended up using here but I tend to grab them when they are in stock. This is definitely the time of year I could really go for a fresh, local tomato. Several more months...
Thank you for your kind words about dietitians, by the way. It's tough with writing because I know that anything I share isn't going to meet everyone's needs. And yes, by the time someone becomes a patient, they may not be in a great situation. 🙁
Terrified Amateur says
Villagio Marzanos were the standard until a month ago, when I discovered a variety called, "Dolce Bites."
Good Lord! Put them under a sunlamp for a moment or two, and I defy you to tell them apart from what you gathered in early August from a trip to your garden!
Alas, they might be just from a local greenhouse, though, because I haven't heard people in other parts of the country raving about them.
Summer Yule says
I have never heard of these! I’ll keep an eye out for them, for sure.