Niçoise salad, the real salade niçoise
The real Niçoise salad (salade niçoise): tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, tuna, anchovies and Niçoise olives with raw vegetables and basil. No potatoes, no green beans, as tradition demands.
Are you looking for the real Niçoise salad, the authentic one that the people of Nice defend word for word?
Then this recipe is for you. I’ll show you how to make a salade niçoise true to tradition: ripe tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, tuna, anchovies and small black olives, all put together in minutes with barely any cooking. The surprise, for many people, is that there are no potatoes and no boiled green beans: the original version is a salad of raw vegetables only, fresh and light.
The beauty of this dish is its honest simplicity, and it has at least three real advantages: it comes together in half an hour, it is naturally gluten free and rich in protein, and it gives you a complete summer meal on a single plate. The secret lies in the quality of a few ingredients: tomatoes at just the right ripeness, good tuna in oil, and small, savory olives.
One thing that makes the difference: dress it only when you serve, with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, so the vegetables stay crisp and alive. No vinegar in the traditional recipe, just a really good oil. If you find fresh spring onions, slice them thin: they bring that sweet, sharp note that feels very much like the French Riviera.
Serve it at room temperature, freshly assembled: this is one of those salads that are best right away, when the flavors are still distinct and fragrant.
Ready? Let’s make the Niçoise salad.
Base preparations used
Steps
- Hard-boil the eggs: 10 minutes in boiling water, then cool them in cold water, peel and cut into wedges.
- Wash the vegetables. Cut the tomatoes into wedges, the pepper into thin strips, the cucumber into half rounds and slice the spring onions finely.
- Arrange the raw vegetables on a serving plate or in a large bowl: the traditional salade niçoise is a salad of raw vegetables, with no potatoes or boiled green beans.
- Flake the tuna and scatter it over, then lay on the anchovy fillets, the Niçoise olives and the egg wedges.
- Add the basil, season with oil, salt and pepper and serve at once, at room temperature.
Helpful tips
The real Niçoise recipe has no potatoes and no green beans: only raw vegetables, eggs, tuna and anchovies.
Use Niçoise black olives, small and full of flavor, and a good extra virgin olive oil: they make the difference.
Dress it only at the last moment, so the vegetables stay crisp.
No vinegar in the traditional version: a fine olive oil is all you need.
Average nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 290 kcal
- Carbohydrates
- 8.0 g
- Sugars
- 5.0 g
- Protein
- 22.0 g
- Fat
- 19.0 g
- Saturated fat
- 4.0 g
- Fiber
- 3.0 g
- Sodium
- 620 mg
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