Vegan Cobb Salad with Watermelon Bacon
Ingredients
Instructions
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1Whisk together all vinaigrette ingredients and set aside.
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2Preheat oven to 375° F (190° C).
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3Cover a baking tray with a piece of parchment paper. Place eggplant cubes onto the tray, drizzle with 2 tablespoons oil, salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Roast for 25-30 minutes, tossing at halftime, until soft and golden. Remove from the oven, set aside and turn on broiler to high.
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4Oil corn ears, sprinkle with salt and paper and place under the broiler. Broil for about 5 minutes, or until dark in places, turn and broil 3-5 more minutes, continuing to turn until both ears are visibly grilled. Let cool and cut kernels off the ears, set aside. Alternatively, grill corn on an outdoor grill.
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5Wash your greens well and dry thoroughly. Distribute between bowls and top with roasted eggplant, corn, beans, olives, tomatoes, avocado and basil, if using. Drizzle with red wine vinaigrette and garnish with torn watermelon bacon (recipe below).
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6Preheat oven to 170° F (77° C).
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7Slice watermelon into very thin strips, around ⅛-inch in thickness, remove and discard green rind. Pat dry with paper towels.
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8Arrange watermelon slices on 2 baking trays, covered with parchment paper, and sprinkle with salt, paprika and lime juice, if using. Place trays on racks positioned in the upper and lower ⅓ of your oven. Let dry for 5 hours, flip pieces and rotate trays. Dry for another 2-3 hours, or until dry and chewy. Alternatively, use a dehydrator - dry watermelon strips on mesh screen trays for 8-12 hours, at 135° F.
I’m sure I’m not alone in my desire to live off salads during these hot summer months. Leafy greens are in abundance and at their most flavorful right now, and if I don’t take full advantage of them, I feel as though I’m missing out. So this summer, our goal is to expand the salad section of our recipe index with all kinds of twists on the classics and more. This week, the idea was to come up with the most vibrant vegan version of Cobb Salad, and putting it together was a true pleasure.
Since Cobb Salad is an entire meal type of affair, I knew I had to load my plant-only version with all kinds of nourishing, savory components. Big, buttery beans replace eggs here, while velvety roasted eggplant could be seen as a stand-in for chicken. There is roasted corn and sweet cherry tomatoes to celebrate the season, avocado for a good dose of healthy fat, and briny Castelvetrano olives for an additional saltiness. I couldn’t resist the edible flower salad mix at the market, but you can use any favorite greens or lettuce as a bed for the ingredients here. Overall, although fruity and colorful in appearance, this Cobb Salad is full of deep, umami flavors. I left the dressing to be quite a traditional, simple vinaigrette, which nicely marries all the ingredients.
Now on to watermelon bacon! An amazing and addictive new discovery, which is essentially just dehydrated strips of watermelon, with salt, lime juice and smoked paprika, for a smoky, bacon-like flavor. The preparation is simple too – the only downside is that it takes quite a long time to make. Although I have a dehydrator, I know that most people don’t, and I really wanted to see if this ‘bacon’ was possible to make in the oven, and it turned out that it is, as pictured. I provide instructions for both oven and dehydrator versions in the recipe below. If using an oven, you will have to keep it on for quite a while, but the temperature that the watermelon dries at is so low, that it shouldn’t heat up your kitchen very much at all. In the end, with some patience, you will have a delicious, sweet and savory snack, that goes very well with this faux-Cobb.
For a person, who cooks with greens a whole lot, I came around to the idea of salad spinners pretty recently. I’m very protective of my kitchen space, having quite a good amount of cooking equipment already, and always wary of adding another thing to the collection, especially one dedicated to a single task. But some time ago, I used a salad spinner while cooking at a friend’s house, and was amazed at how little effort it took to dry the greens – no endless shaking and drying off needed. Since then, I’d gotten a spinner of my own, the kind where you pull a string to spin the bowl. The string had broken numerous times, and I kept replacing it, thinking that’s just how it went with salad spinners. When Kuisiware sent me their salad spinner to try out, I realized that not all spinners are created equal. This one is made with BPA-free materials and is incredibly sturdy, with a hand pedal that takes a few satisfying pushes to get your greens spinning fast. It’s nicely sized, able to fit the curliest bunches of kale, and does its job perfectly. I feel good about adding it to my kitchen repertoire, and can tell that it will last me a long time. To get $5 off the Kuisiware salad spinner, use discount code XGK5OFFX, starting today at 3 pm PDT.
Enjoy the salad and have a nice rest of the week :)
This post was created in partnership with Kuisiware, with all opinions being genuine and our own. Thank you for considering the sponsors that help keep Golubka Kitchen going.
for the red wine vinaigrette
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ¼ cup olive oil
- sea salt - to taste
- freshly ground black pepper - to taste
for the salad
- 1 medium eggplant - cut into cubes
- 3 tablespoons neutral coconut oil/olive oil - divided
- sea salt - to taste
- freshly ground black pepper - to taste
- 2 corn ears
- mixed salad greens or lettuce - washed and dried thoroughly
- 1 cup cooked beans (I used Christmas Lima and Butter Beans) - to taste
- olives - to taste
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes - sliced if necessary
- 1 avocado - sliced
- basil (optional)
- Whisk together all vinaigrette ingredients and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 375° F (190° C).
- Cover a baking tray with a piece of parchment paper. Place eggplant cubes onto the tray, drizzle with 2 tablespoons oil, salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Roast for 25-30 minutes, tossing at halftime, until soft and golden. Remove from the oven, set aside and turn on broiler to high.
- Oil corn ears, sprinkle with salt and paper and place under the broiler. Broil for about 5 minutes, or until dark in places, turn and broil 3-5 more minutes, continuing to turn until both ears are visibly grilled. Let cool and cut kernels off the ears, set aside. Alternatively, grill corn on an outdoor grill.
- Wash your greens well and dry thoroughly. Distribute between bowls and top with roasted eggplant, corn, beans, olives, tomatoes, avocado and basil, if using. Drizzle with red wine vinaigrette and garnish with torn watermelon bacon (recipe below).
- ½ medium watermelon
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- lime juice - optional
- Preheat oven to 170° F (77° C).
- Slice watermelon into very thin strips, around ⅛-inch in thickness, remove and discard green rind. Pat dry with paper towels.
- Arrange watermelon slices on 2 baking trays, covered with parchment paper, and sprinkle with salt, paprika and lime juice, if using. Place trays on racks positioned in the upper and lower ⅓ of your oven. Let dry for 5 hours, flip pieces and rotate trays. Dry for another 2-3 hours, or until dry and chewy. Alternatively, use a dehydrator - dry watermelon strips on mesh screen trays for 8-12 hours, at 135° F.
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