The Gotham Salad hails from the BG Restaurant at New York's renowned Bergdorf Goodman department store. This loaded salad features a medley of ingredients, including chicken, bacon, ham, roasted beets, and Gruyere cheese, all united beneath a generous drizzle of homemade Thousand Island dressing.
Don't you love food with history?
According to Town and Country magazine, Bergdorf Goodman's BG Restaurant averages 2,400 orders of the Gotham salad every month. Over a million diners have enjoyed the Gotham Salad and it has been on the menu for over 100 years.
That's amazing!
This salad is easy to make and it's perfect for a low-carb diet! With all the ingredients cut into bite-size pieces, you get a mouthful of every ingredient in each bite. All of it is gluten-free.
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What You Need for The Gotham Salad
- For the meat and cheese, I went to the deli counter and ordered a one-half-inch slice of turkey breast, Swiss cheese, and ham. I cut each one into long strips and then cut crosswise to dice it.
- Diced cooked beets - you can get great cooked beets in the produce section of your grocery store
- Diced tomatoes - use any variety, the freshest tomatoes you can buy.
- Diced hard-boiled eggs - mash them into bits with the back of a fork.
- Bacon - crumbled into bite-sized pieces.
- Iceberg lettuce - you can substitute Romaine lettuce. The lettuce should be crunchy.
Although the original recipe called for poached chicken breasts, I used deli-sliced Turkey Breast in this salad. I have a great poached chicken recipe you can try.
Ingredients for Thousand Island Dressing
The dressing is delicious. I made it with Hellmann's mayonnaise, chili sauce, pickle relish, chopped onions, and peppers. I used apple cider vinegar instead of tarragon vinegar.
- Diced red onion
- Diced green bell pepper
- Chili sauce. Use can substitute ketchup.
- Sweet pickle relish
- Tarragon vinegar (you can sub apple cider vinegar)
- Grated ginger
- Mayonnaise
- Chopped garlic
- Salt to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper
If this dressing is too much to make, go with a Balsamic Winaigrette, like this one from Meggan Hill. Made with extra virgin olive oil, Dijon mustard, and honey, you can't go wrong.
How To Make Gotham Salad
Chop the salad ingredients. Puree all the dressing ingredients in a food processor or blender. Gently toss salad ingredients with Thousand Island Dressing in a large mixing bowl.
Serve chilled.
Make-Ahead Tips
Chop all the ingredients and prepare the dressing, keeping them separate until ready to serve. Store each component in a separate sealed container and the salad dressing in a covered jar. Refrigerate all components. Here are some top tips:
- Dressing: Blend all ingredients and store in a screw-top jar until ready to use. You can prepare this up to two days in advance.
- Lettuce: Rinse, dry, and store in a plastic bag. Wet a paper towel and place it in the bag to keep the lettuce fresh.
- Tomatoes: Dice large garden variety tomatoes or use cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered.
- Poached Chicken Breast can be cooked a day in advance or substituted with a store-bought rotisserie chicken or deli turkey.
- Bacon can be made a few hours ahead of your meal. Fry or bake the crisp bacon on a sheet pan in the oven until all the fat is rendered out and super-crispy. Crumble until you have ½-inch pieces.
- Hard-boiled eggs can be prepared a day in advance and held in the refrigerator. Chop when putting the salad together.
- Beets can be picked up in the produce section of your grocery store.
Store the leftovers in Mason jars and refrigerate for no more than one day.
This simple high-protein and low-carb chopped salad recipe is perfect for any occasion. It's packed with delicious ingredients like roasted beets, poached chicken, bacon, and gruyere cheese.
The dressing is classic Thousand Island dressing. It's an easy salad to pull together. Plus, it's easy to make – perfect for when you're short on time. Try it today!
The Gotham Salad has many ingredients, but it is well worth the time to make it. You are going to love it! This simple NYC salad recipe is perfect for any occasion.
The Bergdorf Goodman Cookbook
This recipe was adapted from The Bergdorf Goodman Cookbook.
If you enjoy cookbooks, this one is an excellent choice. It features one hundred recipes accompanied by beautiful hand-drawn illustrations. Each recipe includes a passage with background information. I love it!
The recipes include cocktails, horse d'oeuvres, soups, salads, entrees, and lots of desserts from restaurant chefs and famous clientele of the Fifth Avenue landmark.
I've cut the Gotham Salad recipe in half for our purposes, but it can easily be doubled for a large family.
Silverman, Laura. The Bergdorf Goodman Cookbook. New York/USA: Harper Collins Publishers.
Check out these other salad recipes
- Low-Carb Caesar Salad
- Spinach Salad with Strawberries and Feta
- New York Diner Tuna Salad
- Bagel Store Veggie Tuna Salad on a Bialy
- Roasted Sweet Potato and Arugula Salad
- Chicken Salad with Grapes
- Key West Pink Shrimp Salad
- Italian Carrot Salad Recipe
- Ray Peat Carrot Salad
- Chickpea Cucumber Tomato Feta Salad
FAQ
Bring a pot of cold water with a big pinch of salt to a boil. With a slotted spoon, add eggs, one by one. Turn off the heat and cover the pot. Set a timer for 12 minutes. While the eggs are cooking, prepare a big bowl of ice water.
When the timer goes off, pull the eggs out of the pot and plunge into the ice bath. Let them cool for 5-10 minutes. Peel and dice.
Gruyere is a mild cheese, similar to Swiss Cheese. Try Jarlsberg, Swiss, or Emmenthaler.
Alabama Jack's makes a great salad. The iconic bar and restaurant is located on Card Sound Road, about 7 miles from the entrance to the Ocean Reef Club. Their salad ingredients are all cut up so it is similar to a chopped salad. Top the salad with grilled or blackened shrimp and ranch dressing. You can't go wrong!
"📖 Recipe"
Gotham Salad from Bergdorf Goodman
Ingredients
FOR THE SALAD
- 1 cup cooked and diced chicken breasts (4 oz)
- 1 cup cubed Swiss cheese (4 oz)
- 1 cup cooked and diced ham (4 oz)
- 5 slices crispy bacon crumbled
- 2 hard-boiled eggs chopped
- ½ cup roasted diced beets (2-3 cooked beets)
- 1 cup diced tomatoes about ½ pint cherry tomatoes
- 4 cups iceberg lettuce finely shredded (1 head of lettuce)
FOR THE DRESSING
- 1 tablespoon diced red onion 1 slice of onion
- 2 tablespoons diced green bell pepper about ¼ of a pepper
- 2 tablespoons chili sauce
- 1 tablespoon pickle relish
- 1 teaspoon tarragon vinegar use if you have it (or apple cider vinegar)
- ¼ teaspoon minced garlic
- ¼ teaspoon fresh ginger (½-inch piece) peeled
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cut all ingredients into bite-size pieces.
- Puree the dressing ingredients without the mayonnaise. Add the mayo and blend well.
- Toss the salad with the dressing.
- Serve chilled.
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