Review: Baja Cobb Salad from Smashburger

Posted February 27th, 2012 | 3:14pm by Erin Jax

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Some salads are light, healthy alternatives to fast food that are low enough in calories to completely warrant splurging on a side of fries. This isn’t one of them. And, as long as you go into thinking about Smashburger’s Baja Cobb as “the cheeseburger of salads”, you’ll do fine. There’s no possible way to think of the salad as healthy (unless, like me, you justify that by choosing crispy chicken instead of grilled, it could be worse), but there’s also no denying that it’s really, really good.

Blame it on the bacon, the cheddar cheese, the guacamole, or the gobs of spicy, mayo-based chipotle dressing. Or blame it on all four. From an impact of ingredients standpoint, there’s no way this salad could possibly lose. It has all of the tastiest items in the Smashburger arsenal on it, and you can add chicken. All of these delicious components are tossed with fresh greens, tomatoes, onions (which I skipped), and jalapeños, and served in a big bowl. It’s a lot like the Spicy Baja burger, except with a whole lot more of Baja sauce, which contributes greatly to the calorie, sodium, and fat count (as well as the flavor… let’s not forget about that).It’s stupidly delicious. The combination of generously portioned Baja sauce and jalapenos is certainly spicy, but balanced nicely by the sweet chunks of tomato and the guacamole. All of the toppings were fresh, high-quality, and delicious. It’s already a large enough meal without the chicken, but adding protein makes it that much more satisfying.

As much as I enjoyed eating the whole thing, now that I know the full impact of that tasty, tasty sauce, I’ll probably just stick with the Spicy Baja Chicken Sandwich instead. It has a much more reasonable nutritional profile.