Jennifer Aniston Claims This is the ‘Perfect Salad’ — But Is It the 1 She Ate Every Day on ‘Friends’?
The “Jennifer Aniston Salad” recipe has been making its rounds on social media for years. But every time it trends, it seems the ingredients have changed. Which makes it difficult to know if the recipe really comes from the Friends star, or if it’s just an internet legend.
We did some digging to get to the bottom of this mystery. And it turns out, Aniston has claimed that there is a perfect salad. But, it’s not the one Courteney Cox says they ate every day on the set of Friends.
Jennifer Aniston and her ‘Friends’ co-stars ate the same salad every day
The story of the “Jennifer Aniston Salad” dates back to the early days of social media, when Cox gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times. The year was 2010 — six years after the Friends finale — and Cox recalled that she, Aniston, and Lisa Kudrow ate a salad every day that the Rachel Greene actress “doctored up.”
“It was a Cobb salad that Jennifer doctored up with turkey bacon and garbanzo beans and I don’t know what,” Cox said. “She just has a way with food, which really helps. Because if you’re going to eat the same salad every day for 10 years, it’d better be a good salad, right?”
But the latest recipe making the rounds on the internet described as the “Jennifer Aniston Salad” doesn’t include bacon. So, what gives?
Jennifer Aniston claims this is the ‘perfect salad’
Cox may remember a salad that Aniston made with bacon for the Friends cast every day. But, this ingredient was not part of the “perfect salad” recipe Aniston shared in 2015 when she took over the brand Living Proof’s Instagram account for a day. That’s when Aniston shared a photo of her healthy no-cook lunch—which is super easy to recreate.
“My perfect salad,” she wrote, per People Magazine. “Bulgar, cucumbers, parsley, mint, red onion, garbanzo beans, feta cheese, & pistachios.”
This caption made it clear that this recipe came straight from Aniston. And it also confirmed that it wasn’t the same salad she made everyday for 10 years on the set of Friends.
The recipe for ‘the perfect salad’
So, how do you make Aniston’s perfect salad? In the recipe that’s been making its way around Instagram and TikTok recently — shared by Jordana Hart from @ihartnutrition — Aniston’s salad is recreated with handy measurements.
Start out by cooking 3.5 cups of bulgur following the package directions (you might know bulgur wheat as tabbouleh). Hart cooked one of those cups dry, which works out perfectly. Then let that cool while you mix together the other ingredients.
Get your knife out and chop up two to three mini cucumbers, plus a half-cup of parsley and a half-cup of mint. Next, finely chop a third-cup of red onion, and a half-cup of pistachios. Put all of your chopped ingredients in a large bowl, add the bulgur, and crumble in a half-cup of feta cheese.
Add two cups of rinsed and drained chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), then top with a simple dressing — the juice of one lemon, a quarter-cup of extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper. Toss all of the ingredients together and enjoy.
All ten seasons of Friends are now playing on HBO Max.
