Recipe: Salade Niçoise

French people love eating salads and you can easily find this delicious Salade Nicoise in a high end restaurant to ready-to-go deli section. Let’s find out and eat what makes this salad so healthy and delicious!  

Ingredients

• 1 pound red-skinned potatoes, sliced 1/3 inch thick

• Kosher salt

• 2 tablespoons dry white wine

• 10 ounces haricots verts or thin green beans, trimmed

• 4 large eggs

• ¼ cup white wine vinegar

• ½ shallot, minced (about 2 tablespoons)

• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard 

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

• Freshly ground pepper

• ¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil

• 8 cherry tomatoes or small cocktail tomatoes, halved or quartered

• 1 head boston lettuce, leave separated

• 6 radishes, trimmed and quartered

• 25 ½-ounce cans Italian or Spanish tuna packed in olive oil, drained

• ½ cup nicoise olives

If you need help converting the units: Kitchen Calculator

How to make a Salade Niçoise

1. Put the potatoes in a medium saucepan; cover with cold water and season with salt. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat and cook until fork-tender, about 5 minutes. Drain and transfer to a medium bowl; drizzle with the wine and let cool. Reserve the saucepan.

2. Meanwhile, bring a separate saucepan of salted water to a boil. Fill a bowl with salted ice water. Add the haricots verts to the boiling water; cook until crisp-tender and bright green, 2 to 4 minutes. Drain and immediately plunge into the ice water to cool; drain and pat dry. 

3. Place the eggs in the reserved saucepan and cover with cold water by about 1 inch. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, then cover, remove from the heat and let stand, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain, then run under cold water to cool. Peel under cold running water.

4. Make the dressing: Whisk the vinegar, shallot, mustard, thyme, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste in a bowl. Whisk in the olive oil in a slow, steady stream until emulsified. 

5. Toss the tomatoes in a small bowl with salt and pepper to taste. Add about ¼ cup dressing to the potatoes and toss. Quarter the hard-cooked eggs.

6. Divide the lettuce among 4 plates. Arrange the potatoes, haricots verts, radishes, hard-cooked eggs and tuna on top. Pour any juices from the tomatoes into the dressing, then add the tomatoes to the plates. Drizzle with the dressing and top with the olives.
   
   

Et voilà!

Did you know that? Widely known as Salade Niçoise, this typical salad is in harmony with the cooking style of sunny city of Nice in Provence. The traditional Salade Niçoise must be made of only cold vegetables to fully enjoy the quality and finesse of Southern France produce. Regional variations have been created, replacing the beans by fava beans or artichokes, and adding tuna, potatoes, boiled eggs and crispy lettuce. Such complete Salade Niçoise is really popular amongst Frenchmen at lunchtime in summer.