Famous Jennifer Aniston Salad - as told by her!

This "Jennifer Aniston Salad" is probably one of the most flavorful salads I have ever eaten! This is the actual recipe straight from an interview she conducted with Allure in January 2023. There are no cucumbers, feta cheese, bulgur wheat, or quinoa! I thought it would be fun to replicate this salad because it fits perfectly into a low carb diet and it sounded delicious!

You may be wondering why on earth I am posting a recipe that is called Jennifer Aniston Salad. I am not a fangirl by any means. I just thought it was a delicious salad, perfectly low carb, and something I think my audience will love as well! I think that is a good reason!

The real Jennifer Aniston salad is a riff on a Cobb salad and contains salami, chicken, turkey bacon, garbanzo beans, pecorino cheese, tomatoes, and Italian dressing. It does not contain cucumbers, feta cheese, a whole grain, or a lemon vinaigrette. I can honestly say this is my new favorite salad!

This "Jennifer Aniston's Salad" original recipe is apparently the salad she ate every single day on the set of Friends. There was also a Los Angeles Times interview in 2010 with Courtney Cox where she said they ate the salad regularly. The other salad that is the viral recipe on social media is something she made on an Instagram account in 2015. The post has supposedly since been deleted.

Ingredients needed

To make 1 salad, here is what you need:

• Salad greens: Jennifer stated that the salad contains iceberg lettuce, but you can use whatever you like. I prefer shredded green leaf lettuce.
• Canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans): Not too much chickpea because they are heavier in carbs. I just use ¼ cup.
• Cooked chicken breast: I use my air fryer chicken breast recipe to make this, but I season with Italian seasoning.
• Salami: The best is Genoa salami so that's what I've used in this salad. It gives the salad a great salty flavor.
• Turkey bacon: cooked until really crispy.
• Grated pecorino: This is similar to parmesan so use that instead. It's much cheaper! Honestly, I was unsure of the grated parmesan on a salad but it is really delicious! You could also use goat cheese, or feta for a creamy texture.
• Italian dressing: You can definitely use a store bought dressing, but I used the dressing from my Italian Chopped Salad recipe. It contains extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, sugar, dijon mustard, Italian seasoning, garlic, sand salt and pepper.
• Tomatoes: the original recipe also calls for tomatoes.

Of course, you could definitely make this salad your own by adding additional fresh veggies for a nice crunch such as red onion, mini cucumbers, or green onion. Fresh herbs are also a great option and add extra flavor such as fresh mint, fresh parsley, or fresh dill.

Some sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds would also be a great option. Just keep in mind this salad is already almost 500 calories so adding seeds will bump that number up quite a bit.

How to make the famous Jennifer Aniston Salad

It's simple really, just throw everything in a bowl!

Add the shredded greens to a salad bowl and top with the garbanzo beans. I like to season my greens with salt and black pepper.

I then prep all of my proteins. That is my chopped chicken, crumbled turkey bacon, and chopped salami.

The final step is to add your proteins to the salad greens and top with dressing and the grated cheese. It really is the perfect salad and one I will be making on repeat. I honestly cannot think of anything I would change!

Meal prep

What I love most about this famous salad is that it is easy to meal prep. Here is the best way:

• Rinse a whole can of chickpeas, cook enough chicken for 4 salads and chop 4 salads worth of salami.
• Put all of the proteins and chickpeas for each salad into separate bowls. So in each bowl would be ¼ cup chickpeas, 2 ounces chopped chicken breast, and ½ ounce of salami.
• Cook 8 slices of turkey bacon and have them ready to crumble. You could add them in with the other proteins, but the bacon might get soggy. I would keep them stores in a ziplock bag.