Salade niçoise with tuna, egg, green beans and potatoes: dinner on one platter
The summer salad of southern France in the version Polish homes make: tinned tuna, soft-boiled eggs with jammy yolks, blanched green beans, new potatoes, tomatoes, red onion and olives on lettuce, dressed with a mustard vinaigrette. The components are arranged in groups, not tossed: everyone takes what they fancy. As filling as dinner, as light as a salad.
Your own work in that: 15 min.
- Potatoes, eggs, beans 20 min
- Vinaigrette 5 min
- Arranging 10 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneBoil the potatoes and eggs
Scrub the potatoes and boil in their skins in salted water 15–18 minutes, until tender. Bring a second pot of water to the boil and, once the potatoes have had about 10 minutes, lower the eggs in with a spoon and cook 7 minutes: white set, yolk jammy, still slightly soft in the centre. Move the eggs straight into a bowl of iced water and drain the potatoes.
Ingredients: 2 pcs tinned tuna in oil or brine · 4 pcs eggs · 200 g green beans · 400 g small new potatoes · 3 pcs tomatoes · ½ pcs red onion · 80 g black olives · 1 pcs lettuce
TipSeven minutes from the boil gives a soft-set egg with a creamy yolk. The traditional Nice version uses hard-boiled eggs — for those, 9–10 minutes. The ice stops the cooking and makes peeling easier.
Potatoes 15–18 minutes, eggs 7, then iceBlanch the beans
Top and tail the beans. Drop into boiling salted water for 4 minutes; they should be firm and bright green. Drain and plunge at once into iced water: the cold stops the cooking and fixes the colour. Drain.
Four minutes, then ice for the colourMake the vinaigrette
Put the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, crushed garlic, salt and pepper in a jar, close it and shake 20 seconds, until the dressing thickens and turns cloudy. The mustard binds oil and vinegar so the dressing stays together for a good while.
Ingredients: 4 tbsp olive oil · 1½ tbsp wine vinegar · 1 tsp mustard · 1 clove garlic · ½ tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
A jar, 20 seconds, a thick vinaigrettePrepare the rest
Halve the potatoes (skins on), peel the eggs and halve lengthways. Cut the tomatoes into eighths, the onion into very thin feathers, drain the tuna and flake with a fork into large pieces. Tear the lettuce, wash and dry it.
Everything cut, tuna in large flakesArrange in groups and dress
Spread the lettuce on a large platter. Toss the potatoes, still warm, with 2 spoons of vinaigrette — they will soak up the flavour. Arrange the components in separate clusters: potatoes, beans, tomatoes, tuna, olives, onion, eggs on top. Drizzle with the rest of the dressing, grind over pepper. Serve at once, with a baguette.
TipDon't toss: a niçoise is a platter from which everyone composes their own plate. Tossed, it loses its looks and the tomatoes soften everything else.
In clusters on the lettuce, eggs last
Before you start
With anchovies
4–6 anchovy fillets on top, or one mashed into the vinaigrette. In Nice anchovies (alongside the tuna or instead of it) are the backbone of this salad: salty and deep.
With roasted salmon
Instead of tuna, 300 g salmon roasted 12 minutes at 200 °C and flaked. More elegant, for guests.
To go
In a box in layers: vinaigrette at the bottom, potatoes, beans, tuna, tomatoes, lettuce on top, the egg separately. For work or a picnic; mix before eating.
