🥗 What Makes This Recipe So Good
On our honeymoon to Europe in 2014, we spent a few days in Nice, France, a beautiful French Riviera town my husband had visited and fallen in love with. I was no stranger to Nice myself, having been absolutely obsessed with its namesake salad for years by that point. I knew there was no way our honeymoon would be complete until I was sitting in Nice, enjoying an authentically French salade Niçoise brimming with seared tuna, boiled potatoes and haricots verts (green beans), capers, and a tangy vinaigrette. Imagine my surprise when I realized the French dish I’d been in love with all those years was actually its similar-but-very-American cousin! While there’s not exactly a hard-and-fast rule as to what goes into a French salade niçoise, there are definitely differences between the two versions. The Nicoise salad I ordered (and loved!) in Nice was more simple than its American counterpart. Anchovies or tuna, but not both. And that tuna? Canned, not seared. Raw vegetables like red bell pepper, celery, and artichoke hearts, with no boiled potatoes or blanched green beans in sight. Fava beans or lima beans, not capers or pickles. The Nice salad is positively delicious, but for this recipe, we’re making the Americanized dish that stole my heart all those years ago.
👩🏼‍🍳 Chef’s Tips
I love the tanginess of a Dijon dressing on a vibrant, briny nicoise salad, and making that dressing could not be any easier. Make sure not to drain the oil from your cans of tuna – you’ll need it to get the dressing consistency just right. If you prefer to use tuna packed in water instead of oil, that’s totally fine. You can just replace the tuna oil in the dressing with an equal amount of olive oil. Drain all the water from the cans before adding the tuna to your salad. I love using Little Gem lettuce in nicoise salad. It’s a hybrid of romaine lettuce and butter lettuce, so it has a delightfully crisp texture and the lightest bit of sweetness. If you can’t find Little Gem lettuce specifically, you can use romaine or butter lettuce instead. Spinach or green leaf lettuce will work, too. When it comes to hard-boiled eggs, how long you boil them is entirely up to you. I like a jammier egg yolk, so I typically stick to 7-8 minutes. You can go all the way up to 14 minutes, though, if you prefer your eggs to be very firm. Check out my post on Easy Peel Hard- and Soft-Boiled Eggs for a by-the-minute visual guide to boiled eggs. Just a note specific to this nicoise salad recipe: since you’ll need to halve, quarter, or chop the eggs before serving, I don’t recommend soft-boiled or runny egg yolks.
🥬 More Satisfying Salad Recipes
Easy 7 Layer Salad with Homemade Dressing Pittsburgh Chicken Salad Mexican Salad with Cilantro-Lime Dressing Zucchini Salad Strawberry Goat Cheese Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette Smoked Salmon Bagel Salad Amish Broccoli Salad Chicken Cobb Salad (Dairy Free, Whole30) Potato Salad with Raisins Spinach Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing
