A high-fat, low-carb Keto Salad is a great way to enjoy your vegetables on a keto diet! This salad is easy-to-make, full of flavor, and only has 6 grams of net carbs per serving.
There is a common misconception that the keto diet is all about meats and fats with few (if any) fruits and vegetables.
That couldn’t be further from the truth!
While high-carb vegetables like sweet potatoes and corn don’t make an appearance in keto recipes, you can still enjoy a hefty serving of low sugar fruits and vegetables with your keto meals.
This keto salad is a great example. In fact, each serving contains 4 cherry tomatoes, half of an avocado, and 2 cups of mixed greens. That’s about two-and-a-half cups of fruit and veggie goodness right there!
Even for those not following a keto diet, this salad is a great way to enjoy your greens along with healthy fats and nearly 40 grams of protein. This recipe is packed with flavor and will keep you full for hours!
How to make keto salad
This recipe is so simple and straightforward, it’s perfect any time you need something quick and delicious!
Step 1: Dice the cherry tomatoes and avocado. Slice the hardboiled egg.
Step 2: Place the mixed greens into a large salad bowl or plate.
Step 3: Measure out the shredded chicken breast, feta cheese, and crumbled bacon.
Step 4: Place tomatoes, avocado, egg, chicken, feta, and bacon in horizontal rows on top of the greens.
That’s it! You can top it all off with 1 tbsp. of Ranch dressing for 73 calories and about 8 grams of fat (NOT included in nutrition facts below), or choose another dressing you prefer. Then enjoy the whole serving.
Low carb Cobb salad
The nice thing about Cobb salad is that the traditional recipe is naturally low in carbs. You don’t have to come up with keto-friendly substitutes – you just have to make a few small tweaks to the ingredient quantity and it’s good to go as a keto salad.
To make this salad keto-friendly, the biggest change is reducing the amount of tomato. I like to use four cherry tomatoes to keep the carb count low while still enjoying the flavor.
However, if you are not eating very low carb, you are welcome to use a standard amount of tomato like you see in the pictures!
For this recipe, I also increased the amount of avocado to a half per serving. No matter what kind of diet you follow, this is a great way to add healthy fats to the salad.
Feta cheese vs. blue cheese
There is something else that is a little different about this Cobb, but it doesn’t have anything to do with it being keto. It’s the kind of cheese that’s used.
Traditional Cobbs use blue cheese or Roquefort cheese, but this keto salad recipe calls for feta cheese.
Blue cheese is a bit of a “love it or hate it” kind of cheese. Feta, on the other hand, has a much milder flavor and tastes just as good in Cobb salad.
However, if you love blue cheese or Roquefort cheese, feel free to use it instead of feta cheese. It’s actually a bit lower in carbs than feta cheese, so it won’t make this recipe any less keto.
How many carbs are in one serving?
This keto salad recipe is for one serving, which contains 12 grams of carbs and 6 grams of fiber. This leaves you with 6 grams of net carbs per serving.
For a healthy, nutrient-rich salad packed with proteins, veggies, and healthy fats, you really can’t beat that carb count!
Modifying for a non-keto salad
If you don’t follow a keto diet but still want to enjoy this delicious Cobb, a few simple tweaks will make it a perfect salad for anyone!
As-is, there are about 24 grams of fat in this salad. To reduce the fat, you can reduce or eliminate the bacon, the avocado, or both. I personally think those two ingredients add amazing flavor, so I would simply suggest cutting the serving size in half. This is entirely up to you.
To increase the amount of protein, you can double the amount of chicken breast used from 2 oz to 4 oz.
And of course, feel free to use more tomato! While small cherry tomatoes are great for keto, big roma tomatoes are absolutely lovely in a Cobb salad when you aren’t watching the carb count.
Dressing the salad
A traditional Cobb salad calls for blue cheese dressing, but again, this can be a “love it or hate it” situation. Instead, I would recommend using Keto Ranch Dressing or keeping it simple with red wine vinaigrette.
Both of these contain only 1 gram of net carbs per tablespoon (not included in the nutrition facts for this recipe) so there is really no reason not to top off your keto salad with a yummy dressing.
You are also welcome to use a blue cheese dressing if you want to keep it traditional!
Storage
If you have any leftovers, you can store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.
However, this keto salad is best enjoyed in one sitting. Chopped avocado will begin to brown due to oxidation (it’s still perfectly safe to eat, it’s just not as pretty) and any dressing will make the lettuce a bit soggy.
If you want to prep a bit in advance, you can chop the cooked bacon, shred the chicken, and hard boil an egg. That way, once you’re in the mood to enjoy your salad, all of your ingredients will be prepped and ready to go!
Other healthy keto recipes
If you’re looking for a few more tasty meals to enjoy on a keto diet, check out my ketogenic meal plan or take a peek at these recipes:
For even more high-fat, low-carb inspiration, I put together a round up of my favorite delicious keto fat bomb recipes!
When you’ve tried this recipe, please don’t forget to let me know how you liked it and rate the recipe in the comments below!
Keto Salad
Ingredients
- 4 cherry tomatoes
- ½ avocado
- 1 hardboiled egg
- 2 cups mixed green salad
- 2 oz. chicken breast, shredded
- 1 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
- ¼ cup cooked bacon, crumbled
Instructions
- Dice the tomatoes and avocado. Slice the hardboiled egg.
- Place the mixed greens into a large salad bowl or plate.
- Measure out the shredded chicken breast, feta cheese, and crumbled bacon.
- Place tomatoes, avocado, egg, chicken, feta, and bacon in horizontal rows on top of the greens.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Info Per Serving
Uh… I mean it’s a great looking salad, it’s probably still plenty keto friendly, but those are not cherry tomatoes. If you calculated the nutrients based on cherry tomatoes, you massively under-calculated the tomato carbs. Cherry tomatoes are those little bite-sized things about the size of your thumb. These are just small tomatoes. You ended up with about as much tomato as would be in a regular cobb. Possibly MORE tomato.
You’re right! That does not look like cherry tomatoes. The macros, however, are calculated based on 4 cherry tomatoes. Will take note of that
I’ve been making Cobb Salads for years (I absolutely LOVE them) using the following “formula”: EAT COBB [i.e., Eggs, Avocado, Tomatoes, Chicken (which I sometimes switch out with Tuna), Onions, Bacon and Blue Cheese)] which I top with a homemade Ranch Dressing, so I added 1/4 chopped onion and 2 slices of cooked and crumbled bacon to your already wonderful recipe. My Dressing (which I used to make with Buttermilk but which I now make with Heavy Cream), for whoever may be interested, includes the following ingredients (most of which are pretty much staples in a Keto Kitchen), makes enough for 3-4 servings, and may be stored in the refrigerator for at least 1 week:
0.5 cup Mayonnaise
0.25 cup Sour cream
1 tsp Lemon (or Lime) juice
1 tsp Dried parsley (or Basil or Cilantro)
0.5 tsp Dried dill
0.5 tsp Dried chives
0.5 tsp fresh minced Garlic (0.25 tsp Garlic powder may be substituted)
0.25 tsp Onion powder
0.25 tsp Cayenne Pepper flakes (optional)
0.25 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground Black pepper
1 oz. Heavy Cream
Do you have a suggested brand for ranch dressing? The only ones I see have soy or corn oil in them and are loaded up with sugar and gum and starch paste.
That sounds awful! I have a few favourites.
First is calorie/carb free but therefore also has a fair amount of artificial ingredients called Walden Farms Ranch Salad Dressing. Given it is calorie/carb free you can expect it to not exactly taste as a full fat Rach, but I like it.
Second is a low calorie/carb dressing is super yummy called Bolthouse Farms Cucumber Ranch Dressing.
So, hope that’s a good starting point..
I made my homemade salad dressing using these ingredients:
One packsge of Hidden Valley Ranch Buttermilk Flavor, Unsweetened Greek Yogurt, Almond Milk a little Hymiliam Salt and Black pepper to taste.
Directions:(I was only was using 1/2 of the package which makes @ 2/3 cups for my marinade over some chicked last night)
Mix 1 & 1/2 Tablespoons of Unsweetened Greek Yogurt, 1 Tablespoon of Almond milk, 1 Tablespoon of the Ranch Dressing package..you can add a little more to get the taste you want to though, then add salt & pepper to taste. Stir all ingredients together and chill until cold & a little firm. A out 15 minutes then pour over whatever. You can use a jar to store it in or a storage container. The yogurt replaces the sour cream & the milk thins it out to a creamy state. According to your taste you may want to add or substitute ingredients. This is a very cheap dip to make because we usually have these ingredients anyway on hand & the package cost @ $1.50! N it’s @ 1 carb & the other little splashes of ingredients that equal it to be @ 4 carbs or so.