What Is Niçoise Salad?
Nicoise Salad (referred to as Salade Niçoise in French bistros), originates from Nice, France and features crisp vegetables and tuna. It’s both light, yet filling, and while it can take a little time to prep everything, it requires very little effort to bring together.
The simple prep includes: blanched green beans until crisp-tender, potatoes that are boiled whole, hard boiled eggs that are halved or quartered, and high quality jarred or canned tuna. Not fresh tuna. We love Tonnino tuna, it is truly decadent. (You can totally make Nicoise salad with salmon, though!)
You can’t go wrong with a drizzle of a nice extra virgin olive oil, but we love this Niçoise Salad Dressing made with Niçoise olives. All that’s left is to chill a bottle of Provence rosé!
What’s In A Nicoise Salad?
The combination of ingredients in Nicoise Salad is one of the most beautiful ways to celebrate high quality ingredients.
- Green beans: Or haricots verts (French beans) — we prefer the latter.
- Small new potatoes: These can be left whole or halved depending on their size.
- Hard boiled eggs: Sometimes we substitute with a soft boiled egg, but hard boiled is traditional.
- Ripe tomatoes: Tomatoes are best in summer. Look for ripe tomatoes, any shape or variety you like: heirloom, cherry tomatoes, grape, Roma, really anything!
- Butter or Bibb lettuce leaves: You want to use a soft, buttery lettuce. Any variety!
- High quality canned tuna, such as Tonnino tuna. You might see restaurants in America serving Nicoise salad with fresh grilled tuna or pan seared tuna, but this is not traditional. Jarred tuna is where it’s at!
- Anchovies and capers: Yes, these are necessary, and yes, you will love them!
- Niçoise olives: These are small black olives grown in southwestern France. We’re lucky enough to have them available at the olive bar at Whole Foods, but if you can’t find fresh, jarred is just fine. A decent alternative is pitted Kalamata olives, though not the same flavor).
- Flaky sea salt: To season everything!
How To Make This Classic French Salad
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. This will be used multiple times! First, you’ll blanch string beans, then cook potatoes until tender, and finally you can use it a third time to make hard boiled eggs.
- You’ll also want large bowl of ice water ready. This is to stop the cooking process for the haricots verts and eggs after cooking. The potatoes will need to drain after cooking.
- Chop the ingredients. You can chop or leave the string beans whole, but you’ll want to halve or quarter the eggs and tomatoes. Potatoes can be left whole or halved as well.
- Assemble the Niçoise salad. Lay all ingredients on top of a bed of lettuce leaves on a large platter. Add remaining ingredients: anchovies, capers, Nicoise olives, and tuna. Be sure to season the tomatoes and eggs with flaky sea salt. Freshly grated black pepper is a delicious addition.
- Dress the salad. Either drizzle with a high quality EVOO and fresh lemon juice or consider making our Nicoise Salad Dressing, which features those delicious Niçoise olives.
That’s it! You can make assembly a bit easier by prepping the green beans, eggs, and potatoes a few days in advance, but wait to chop the tomatoes until right before serving.
Make Ahead Instructions
To save time, consider making the hard boiled eggs and blanching the string beans and potatoes 2 days in advance. Store in an airtight container in a fridge until needed.
Nicoise Salad Dressing
You could certainly dress this Nicoise salad with extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice (whisk together in a small bowl to emulsify — and consider adding just a touch of Dijon mustard!), but we really love this olive vinaigrette made with Nicoise olives and a splash of sherry vinegar. It’s also got lots of fresh basil leaves, which we think brightens up the entire salad!
This salad dressing can be made up to 5 days in advance. Just refrigerate until needed, then allow to come to room temperature to loosen a bit before serving.
The Best Tuna For Salad
We’ll say it again and again: this salad recipe really deserves a high quality canned or jarred tuna. We recommend Tonnino. Yes, it is pricy, but we just wait until it’s on sale (this happens often!) and stock up with a few jars so they’re always on hand. If you have extra tuna lying around, we also use it in this White Bean Salad with Tuna.
You can use Yellowfin or Albacore tuna. We do not, however, recommend chunk light for this salad.
Serving Suggestions
A classic Salade Niçoise requires nothing more than a cool, crisp glass of wine. If, however, you want to add some crusty baguette on the side, we wouldn’t shy away from that.
If this is part of a larger meal, consider adding our Cucumber Gazpacho to start.
Expert Tips
- Mise en place is key! Have all your veggies prepped and ready to go, as they take a little time to cook. When you’re ready to assemble — either the same day or a couple days later — the prep time will be minimal.
- Use a high quality tuna! Again, we love Tonnino tuna. Big, flaky pieces of cooked albacore or yellowfin tuna that are packed with flavor (and packed in oil). Do not use chunk link.
- If making hard boiled eggs in advance, refrigerate unpeeled. Peel them just before slicing and serving.
Variations
- Potatoes: If you have leftover roasted potatoes, use those instead!
- String beans: Any slender, crisp bean will work. We grow all sorts of varieties in the summer. These would be great with any color snappy bean!
- Eggs: Not traditional at all, but sometimes we like to serve Nicoise salad with a jammy 7-minute egg.
- Change up the dressing! Instead of Nicoise Salad Dressing, you could try any other vinaigrette you love most.
- Fresh herbs: Top with basil, chives, chopped parsley.
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How To Make A Classic Niçoise Salad Recipe (Salade Niçoise)
Video
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 (5-7 oz) jars Tonnino tuna or other high quality canned or jarred tuna, not chunk light
- 1 lb haricots verts stem ends trimmed
- 1 lb Yukon gold or new potatoes
- 4 large hard boiled eggs see note below for instructions
- 1 head butter lettuce leaves or Bibb lettuce leaves
- 4 medium ripe heirloom tomatoes quartered or cut into chunks, or ½ pint halved cherry tomatoes
- ½ cup Nicoise olives pitted
- 8 anchovy fillets
- 1 Tbsp capers drained
- Flaky sea salt for serving
- Freshly ground black pepper for serving
- ½ cup Nicoise Salad Dressing alternatives below
Instructions
- Blanch the haricot verts. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add trimmed haricot verts, then cook for 3 minutes. Using tongs, transfer the string beans to an ice bath. Return the water to a boil. After a few minutes, drain the haricots verts. Leave whole or chop into bite-size pieces.
- Cook the potatoes. Season the boiling water with a generous 1-2 Tbsp of Kosher salt. Add the potatoes and cook for 12-15 minutes, or until the potatoes are knife tender. Drain. Leave whole or halve.
- Assemble the Nicoise salad. Place lettuce leaves on a large platter, then add tuna, string beans, potatoes, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, and olives, placing them in mounds around the tray. Scatter with 8 anchovy fillets and 1 Tbsp drained capers, then season the tomatoes and eggs with flaky sea salt. Season the entire salad with freshly ground black pepper.
- Dress, then serve. Drizzle the entire salad with our Nicoise Salad Dressing, then dig in!
Notes
- Prep time varies depending on whether you use more than 1 pot of boiled water to cook eggs and veggies.
- How to hard boil eggs: Place 3 large eggs in a medium saucepan, then cover with cold water. Add a splash of white vinegar, then place over high heat. Bring the water to a rapid boil, then turn off the heat, cover, and set a timer for 10 minutes. Immediately transfer the eggs to an ice bath to cool for 5 minutes, then peel.
- Nicoise Salad Dressing can be made up to 5 days in advance.
- Make ahead: Cook the hard boiled eggs and blanch the string beans and potatoes up to 2 days in advance. Store in an airtight container in a fridge until needed. Do not peel eggs until ready to serve.
- Variations:
- Potatoes: If you have leftover roasted potatoes, use those instead!
- String beans: Any slender, crisp bean will work. We grow all sorts of varieties in the summer. These would be great with any color snappy bean!
- Eggs: Not traditional, but sometimes we like to serve this salad with a jammy 7-minute egg.
- Change up the dressing! Drizzle with high quality olive oil and fresh lemon juice or any other vinaigrette you love.
- Fresh herbs: Top with basil, chives, chopped parsley.
This was so good and perfect for lunch! I used kalamata olives instead and it worked, although it did turn my dressing a little pink. I also used romaine since that’s what I already had and that was great too. Thanks so much Ari, keeping this one in the rotation! xx
Love these flavors together — and yes, Kalamata olives are great here too! xo, Ari