Columbia 1905 Salad (Copycat Recipe) - The Quicker Kitchen (2024)

You don’t have to be in Florida to enjoy the famous Columbia 1905 salad with this copycat recipe! Full of crisp veggies, Swiss cheese, julienned ham, croutons and covered in a zingy dressing, this salad is almost a perfect dupe of the original recipe.

The Columbia restaurant is Florida’s oldest restaurant.

It was founded in 1903 by a Spanish Cuban immigrant named Casimiro Hernadez Sr. and originally called the Columbia Saloon.

In 1905, it became the Columbia House restaurant and the rest is history with seven locations throughout Florida.

This piece of history is a fun (and delicious!) place to visit anytime we’re in the Sunshine State.

And one of our favorite orders is their famous salad.

We’re not the only ones to love the 1905 salad!

USA Today once named the Columbia House one of the top 10 places in the country to make a meal out of a salad, based solely on this hearty dish.

What is the 1905 salad?

The 1905 salad originated at the famous Columbia House restaurant as its answer to the salad bar in the 70s.

While it became popular in the 70s thanks to the salad bar craze, the recipe dates back to the 1940s when it was created by waiter Tony Noriega, who wanted a hearty and filling salad.

Columbia House adapted his recipe and created a new dressing based on Spanish olive oil, white wine vinegar, and seasonings.

It packs a flavorful zippy punch thanks to Worcestershire sauce, lemon and Parmesan cheese.

The result?

An unforgettable salad!

Ingredients

We’ll break this down into two sets of ingredients- one for the salad itself and one for the dressing.

For the salad you’ll need:

• Lettuce– Iceberg lettuce with the core removed. You can do this easily by holding the head of lettuce above a wooden cutting board, core side down. Slam it down with some force, which will push the core in and you should be able to easily twist and pull it out. If not, repeat. Then roughly chop the lettuce.
• Sliced Swiss Cheese– Use a quality Swiss cut from the deli. Thinly julienne it so it makes strips that resemble linguine noodles.
• Ham– Tavern cut ham, julienned into thin slices. This is also a great way to use up leftover ham from holidays like Easter & Christmas.
• Grape Tomatoes– Halved
• Olives– This salad requires green olives with pimento in the center- I recommend the manzanilla variety.
• Red onion– Thinly sliced
• Parsley– Chopped fresh parsley
• Croutons– You can use any store-bought variety, or you can make a batch of homemade croutons in an air fryer.
• Parmesan cheese– Freshly grated- you want to use the good stuff here, not the canned stuff from the pizza aisle.

For the dressing you’ll need:

• Olive oil– For the most authentic experience use Spanish olive oil, but really any extra virgin olive oil will work.
• Vinegar– Both red wine vinegar and white wine vinegar
• Garlic– Both minced garlic and garlic salt
• Oregano– We’ve always made this using dried oregano; however, you can use fresh if preferred. Remember though that dried herbs tend to have a deeper, more pronounced flavor- so if using fresh oregano you will need to use more than the teaspoon originally called for.
• Worcestershire sauce
• Lemon juice– Fresh is best, but the jarred kind will work too.
• Fresh ground black pepper

How to Make

To make this famous salad, start by whisking all of the dressing ingredients together in a small mixing bowl.

Set the dressing aside.

Then, add all of the salad ingredients to a large mixing bowl and toss them gently.

Pour the dressing over the salad and toss everything again just until evenly combined.

Serve immediately, and enjoy!

Storing Leftovers

I don’t recommend saving leftovers of the salad as it will get soggy in the fridge.

However if you want, you can save any leftover salad dressing in a tightly covered jar in the fridge.

Tips and Tricks

• The preparation instructions are important. The meat and cheese both get ‘julienned’, which is the perfect cut to ensure maximum flavor in every bite.
• Don’t skip the worcestershire sauce, which gives the salad dressing a nice zesty zing
• Quality ingredients are important for this. Make sure you use freshly grated Parmesan cheese and not the kind in the can along with your favorite brand of Swiss cheese and ham.

Other Copycat Salad Recipes

The Columbia 1905 salad is a must try for anyone who loves the classic restaurant.

Make it and enjoy!

Looking for other copycat salad recipes?

Try these:

• Oriental Chicken Salad (Applebee’s Copycat)
• Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse Chopped Salad
• Mexican Chicken Caesar Salad

If you’ve tried this COLUMBIA 1905 SALADor any other recipe on the site, let me know in the comment section how it turned out, we love hearing from our readers! You can also follow along with me onPINTEREST,FACEBOOK, andINSTAGRAM to see more amazing recipes and whatever else we’ve got going on!