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If you need a filling salad for a teen lunch, this Cobb has chicken, eggs, bacon, and cheese and packs in 37 grams of protein. Here, you’ll learn the shortcuts for making it quickly and how to pack it so everything stays fresh until lunchtime.
Cobb Salad for School Lunch
In high school, my daughter began packing filling salads like this one at night, whenever we made Cobb salad for dinner, since all the ingredients were already out. If you don’t have grilled chicken, swap it for rotisserie or chicken tenders. It’s one lunch idea my teen has been happy to bring to school.
Packing It for Lunch
- Assemble
The trick to packing salad for lunch and keeping the lettuce crisp is to add all the ingredients inside the lunch container except the dressing. - Pack the dressing
Pour your favorite dressing into a small leak-proof container. You’ll drizzle it over the salad when you’re ready to eat. - Pack for lunch
Close the container and refrigerate until it’s time to leave. Pack it inside an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack to keep everything chilled until lunch.
Laura’s School Lunch Packing Tips
Yes. Cook the chicken, bacon, and hard-boiled eggs ahead of time so assembling the salad takes just a few minutes. You can assemble the entire salad the night before, up to 3 days ahead, and add the avocado on top the morning you’re packing it.
Keep the dressing in a separate leak-proof container and add it right before eating. Keeping the cherry tomatoes whole also prevents extra moisture from getting onto the lettuce.
Cut the avocado the morning you’re packing the salad. You can also give it a squeeze of lemon or lime juice to slow down browning or swap the sliced avocado for a single-serve guacamole cup.
Yes. Fully cooked chicken can be packed cold in this salad, which makes it especially convenient for school lunches where reheating isn’t an option.
Ranch is always easy, but Cobb salad also works well with red wine vinaigrette, cilantro lime sauce, or maple Dijon dressing. Pack whichever one you use separately and add it at lunch.
Keep the salad refrigerated until it’s time to leave, then pack it inside an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack. This is especially important with chicken, eggs, cheese, and other perishable ingredients.
More Teen Lunch Ideas
Cobb Salad Teen Lunch
Watch How It’s Made:
Ingredients
- 2 cups chopped Romaine lettuce
- 1 hard-boiled egg, sliced
- ¼ avocado, sliced
- ¼ cup cucumber slices
- ¼ cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 tablespoon blue cheese crumbles
- 1 slice of bacon, cooked and crumbled
- 3 oz grilled chicken breast, sliced
- 2 tablespoons creamy vinaigrette
Instructions
Assemble
- Add the chopped Romaine to a lunch container. Top with the hard-boiled egg, avocado, cucumber, whole cherry tomatoes, blue cheese, bacon, and sliced cooked chicken.
Pack the dressing
- Pour your favorite dressing into a small lidded container and pack it separately so the lettuce stays crisp.
Pack for school
- Close the container and refrigerate until ready to pack. Place it inside an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack and keep chilled until lunchtime. Add the dressing right before eating.
Sarah says
Delicious