Fall Harvest Cobb Salad
This Fall Harvest Cobb Salad with Cheddar Cheese, Apples and Bacon is a flavorful seasonal salad with spiced nuts and nourishing and hearty toppings. It is easy enough to make for lunch or a weeknight dinner and special enough to serve to house guests or company.
I originally shared this salad recipe on October 28th, 2014. I have updated the recipe, images and text to bring it to you again today.
Table of contents
Why We Love This Recipe For Fall Harvest Cobb Salad
The time has come when I begin making the switch from summer tomato or cucumber salads to cold weather salads.
And by that, I mean salads that are loaded with fall flavors like nuts, apples, vegetables and more. My Thanksgiving Salad with Roasted Squash and Cranberries comes to mind (Promise me you’ll try that one next!) Rather than being super light like my summer salads, my fall and winter salads are big, bold and packed full of nourishing seasonal toppings–like this fall harvest Cobb salad!
This delicious and hearty salad is topped with chunks of cheddar cheese, crumbled bacon, spiced nuts and chunks of honey crisp apples from a recent apple picking trip.
I have made this with my homemade cranberry vinaigrette and this Apple Cider Vinaigrette too. Both are wonderful!
There are all sorts of flavors and textures layered together which makes it a really interesting and crave-worthy salad.
This harvest cobb can be divided into meal prep containers for lunches to go, or you can make it ahead for a entree salad for a weeknight dinner. Break off a piece of Fall Chocolate Bark for dessert and you have the perfect autumn meal!
More Healthy Seasonal Cobb Salad Recipes
In case you’re new here, you may not know that I have a whole Cobb Salad series. Other recipes that are included are:
- Our summer fresh Grilled Corn and Peach Cobb Salad features fresh grilled stone fruit and corn on the cobb with pecans, bleu cheese and hard boiled eggs.
- Our classic Healthy Cobb Salad is perfect for any season, and is lighter and lower in calories than most traditional cobb salads.
- This wintery Southwest Cobb Kale Salad is made with a base of kale greens and is topped with Southwest-inspired toppings for another twist on Cobb salads.
Key Ingredients For This Recipe
Salad greens
My favorite salad greens for this recipe are mixed baby greens because they are a little peppery and go well with the bold flavors of this salad. I also like these toppings on a bed of baby spinach. You can also do a combination of both, or honestly use whichever salad green you prefer or have on hand.
Eggs
No Cobb salad would be complete without hard-boiled eggs. To make them easier to peel, it is best to hard boil eggs that are not super fresh.
Bacon
Try to look for uncured, smoked bacon without added sodium nitrates in it. You could also use turkey bacon if that’s what you prefer. Cook and crumble it into pieces.
Apple
I prefer to use crisp sweet apples such as Honeycrisp, pink lady, Mutsu, Piñata or Ambrosia in salads. It adds such nice freshness. You’ll need to dice it, but no need to peel. Read more about which are good to use in my guide to apples.
Cheddar Cheese
Typically a Cobb salad has blue cheese, but in this harvest version, we decided to use cheddar cheese. The flavors of the apples, bacon and cheddar are amazing together! Extra sharp cheddar cheese is my favorite because it is quite strong, so a little goes a long way. It’s so creamy, tangy and a little nutty.
Spiced nuts
You can either make your own homemade spiced nuts or purchase them at the store.
Vinaigrette
Last but not least you’ll need a tasty vinaigrette to finish off this salad. I have tons of salad dressing recipes here on my site, but if you need some guidance, my Maple Tahini Dressing, Maple Sherry Vinaigrette or Apple Cider Vinaigrette are all excellent options. This Cranberry Vinaigrette or Lemon Vinaigrette Salad Dressing are other ideas to try. You can’t really go wrong!
Instructions to Make This Fall Harvest Cobb Salad
Step 1: Hard Boil Eggs
Cover eggs with cold water in a small saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil over high heat. Reduce heat to maintain a gentle boil and cook for 10 minutes. Drain away the boiling water and run cold tap water into the saucepan for a minute to cool the eggs. Peel and chop.
Step 2: Cook Bacon
Lay the bacon on a paper-towel lined plate. Place a layer of paper towels over them and cook in the microwave until crisp, 3 to 6 minutes. Cool and crumble or chop.
Alternatively, you can bake it or cook it in a skillet. Let it cool, then crumble or chop.
Step 3: Compose the Harvest Cobb Salad
Once all the salad components are prepped, arrange the salad greens, bacon, apple, cheddar and nuts on six plates.
Step 4: To Serve
Drizzle the dressing over the salads and serve.
FAQs and Expert Tips
Just because you don’t eat meat doesn’t mean you should have to miss out on this awesome salad! You can either just omit the bacon completely, OR you can make my Vegan Shiitake Mushroom Bacon.
This is a great meal prep salad. Divide the servings into four meal prep containers and keep refrigerated up to 3 days. The only things I would keep in mind are that the spiced nuts should be kept separately so they do not become tacky. Additionally, to keep the apples from turning brown, toss the cubes in a little lemon water.
To keep it easy, feel free to use purchased spiced nuts. But you can also make them yourself from scratch. To make them at home you can follow these instructions for crispy spiced nuts and these chocolate chili spiced nuts are good too!
Variations To Try
- Instead of apples, use chunks of roasted butternut squash, roasted Brussels sprouts or delicata squash.
- Crumbled fresh goat cheese or chevre makes a great sub for the cheddar cheese.
- Substitute pear or persimmon for the apple.
- Add on chopped cooked chicken or smoked deli turkey for additional protein.
Additional Salad Recipes to Try
- If you are a fan of Brussels sprouts, then you have to try my Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad or this Brussels Sprouts Slaw with Bacon and Blue Cheese.
- Massaging the kale in this Massaged Kale Salad with Apple really helps to break those tough fibers up.
- This Healthier Broccoli Cheddar Salad with Bacon is inspired by my grandmother’s recipe.
- Arugula Salad with Butternut Squash and Maple Vinaigrette is another autumn salad to try this season.
- This fall while figs are in season, try this fresh Fig Salad.
At Healthy Seasonal Recipes, we specialize in cooking with fresh veggies and creating weeknight meals. Sign up HERE to get more produce-forward dinner ideas for FREE! If you make this recipe, please come back and leave a star rating and review. I would love to hear what you thought! Happy Cooking! ~Katie
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Fall Harvest Cobb Salad
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Description
This Fall Harvest Cobb Salad with Cheddar Cheese, Apples and Bacon is a flavorful seasonal salad with spiced nuts and nourishing and hearty toppings. It is easy enough to make for lunch and special enough for Thanksgiving.
Ingredients
4 large eggs
5 slices bacon
8 cups mixed baby greens, or baby spinach
1 large or 2 small crisp sweet apple, such as honey crisp, diced
4 ounces cubed sharp cheddar cheese, about 1 cup
1/2 cup spiced nuts, homemade or purchased
1/2 cup vinaigrette (such as apple cider vinaigrette)
Instructions
- Cover eggs with cold water in a small saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil over high heat. Reduce heat to maintain a gentle boil and cook for 10 minutes. Drain away the boiling water and run cold tap water into the saucepan for a minute to cool the eggs. Peel and chop.
- Lay the bacon on a paper-towel lined plate. Place a layer of paper towels over them and cook in the microwave until crisp, 3 to 6 minutes. Cool and crumble or chop.
- Arrange salad greens, the, eggs, the bacon, apple, cheddar and nuts on six plates or a serving platter.
- Drizzle with the dressing.
Notes
Make Ahead and Meal Prep Tips
This is a great meal prep salad. Divide the servings into four meal prep containers and keep them refrigerated up to 3 days. The spiced nuts should be kept separately so they do not become tacky. Additionally, to keep the apples from turning brown, toss the cubes in a little lemon water.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Salad
- Method: No Cook
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/6 recipe (abotu 2 cups)
- Calories: 382
- Sugar: 6 g
- Fat: 32 g
- Saturated Fat: 10 g
- Carbohydrates: 10 g
- Fiber: 2 g
- Protein: 14 g
So much yes with this salad. Full of so many yummy things perfect for the fall season!
I absolutely agree, Jess. Thank you for the kind words.
We’re going to be eating this salad on repeat this fall! It’s so good with such great flavors and textures!
That is so great to hear, Amy!
Perfect fall salad. Refreshing and delicious. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Kushi!
This looks like my kind of salad! Anything with bacon is a winner in my books.
I absolutely agree, Janessa. Thank you for the comment!
This is definitely the perfect salad for fall! This has all the goodies with bacon and cheese in a salad. My favorites!
I am so thrilled that you enjoyed my salad recipe, Mirlene! Thank you for the kind words.
HI love your salad collection. I was wondering if you could help me fine this recipe? I can’t find it on Cabot’s website. Thanks
Thanks so much for letting me know the link wasn’t working Cassie. I just found it and fixed it for you. It should work now. Enjoy!
This is my kind of salad, all that bacon and cheese and crunchy nuts all wrapped up in a healthy little package!
Thank you, Chantelle! It’s one of my favorite fall salads for sure.
HOW GOOD is Cabot cheddar?! I may or may not just bite into a raw block for a snack because I have no shame, but your version of incorporating cheddar into ones diet is decidedly more classy! love the simple goodness of this one!
I eat it straight off the cutting board every day too 😉 But I can’t exactlty post a recipe for that. Lol.