Easy Summer Recipe: Salade Niçoise with Tuna

Easy French Summer Recipe: Salade Niçoise with Tuna

Salade Nicoise with Tuna is a classic French salad and the perfect summer dish: light, versatile, and full of flavor. Best of all, it doesn’t involve turning on the oven or any significant cooking time on a hot day. With tender new potatoes, niçoise olives or salty Kalamata olives, ripe tomatoes, butter leaf lettuce, and tuna all in a lemony vinaigrette dressing, it is a trip to the south of France on a plate. 

Why You Should Give This Recipe a Try

Main dish or side salad: Served with crusty bread, the variety of veggies and tuna make this a great main dish salad. It can also be served as a fancy side dish for either special occasions or simple summer get-togethers.

No complicated cooking techniques: Basically the only thing you need to be able to do to make this recipe is boil some potatoes and make a few hard-boiled eggs, chop veggies, and toss things together. What could be easier?

Extremely versatile: Even the French differ on what you can put in a Salade Niçoise. The classic niçoise salad recipe calls for anchovies, for example, but here we are using canned tuna. A veggie you don’t like? Don’t use it. A salad veggie you love? Toss it in!

No need to heat up your house: As someone who only recently got air conditioning, any summer recipe that doesn’t require turning on the oven is a total win.

Simple dressing: As far as salad dressings go, this lemon vinaigrette is so easy to put together. Make a double batch and use it on all sorts of salads!

Recipe Ingredients

You will need the following ingredients to make your Salade Niçoise with Tuna:

Salad

Salad greens

Small potatoes

Hard-boiled eggs

Tomatoes

Olives

Red onion

Tuna

Nicoise Salad Dressing

Olive oil

Lemon juice and zest

Dijon mustard

Shallots

Kosher salt 

Ingredient Notes

Salad greens – create a nice bed of lettuce using shredded butter leaf or romaine. If you prefer another type of lettuce, feel free to give it a try.

Potatoes – You can use new potatoes, yellow potatoes, or red potatoes. Overall, you are looking for small, baby potatoes. 

Tomatoes – You can use a ripe, sliced tomato, cherry tomatoes, or grape tomatoes

Olives – The traditional niçoise salad has niçoise olives, but those can be hard to find. You can use Kalamata olives or even pitted black olives instead. 

Tuna – Choose tuna canned in either oil or water. I prefer water because I have convinced myself if it healthier. Can you use cooked tuna steaks? How about salmon? Absolutely! It is your salad; go for it.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Bring four quarts of salted water to a boil in a large pot. 

2. Wash the potatoes. Consider the size of the potatoes. If they are very small, you can cook them whole; if they are a bit on the larger size, halve them. Gently place them in the boiling water. Cook until you can easily pierce the potatoes with fork, about 15-20 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool.

3. Bring two quarts of water and one teaspoon of salt to a boil in a large saucepan.

4. When the water is boiling, gently add the eggs with a slotted spoon. Lower the heat bringing the water to a gentle simmer. Cook for fifteen minutes.

5. Prepare an ice bath of cold water and ice cubes.

6. When the eggs are done, remove them with a slotted spoon and place them gently in the ice bath. Set aside.

7. While the potatoes and eggs cool, lay a bed of salad greens on a large platter. Butter leaf lettuce works great here, but you can also use shredded romaine or other greens of your preference. If you don’t have a platter, you can also use a large salad bowl.

8. ​If you are using whole tomatoes, quarter them. If you are you using cherry or grape tomatoes, you can halve them.

9. ​Thinly slice the red onion.

​10. Remove the eggs from the bowl of ice water. Peel and quarter the eggs.

11. Begin assembling your salad. There is no particular order, so you do you! Add the tomatoes, potatoes, eggs, red onion, olives, and drained tuna.

12. Prepare the vinaigrette. You can use a small bowl, but a jar is really practical.

13. ​Mince the shallot.

14. ​Squeeze the lemon juice.

15. Put the olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, and salt in the bowl or jar. Stir or shake until completely combined.

16. As with most things involved in this salad, you have choices. You can toss your salad to create, as the French say, a composed salad, or you can just serve it straight off the platter. You can add the dressing to everything all at once, or you can add it to each dish individually.

Bon Appétit! 

Storage

Try not to drown your salad in dressing (see Tips & Tricks). This will keep the leftovers from getting soggy. Place leftover salad in an airtight container and put a slightly damp paper towel on top. Seal the container and store it in the fridge. It should keep for 24 hours.

Tips & Tricks​

Peeling Hard-boiled Eggs: Peeling hard-boiled eggs is a pain when little bits of shell stick to the egg. Plunging the eggs into the ice water bath after they are cooked will help that. Once your eggs are cool, tap the wide end on a paper towel to crack the shell. The rest should be easy!

Don’t Drown Your Salad: While the lemony vinaigrette is delicious, if you pour it over the entire salad, you will need to eat everything at one sitting. If you add the dressing to each serving, you will be able to store your leftovers.

Double Your Dressing​: Make a double batch of salad dressing, especially if you are preparing it in the jar. It is great for all sorts of salads and even over veggies!

FAQs

Aren’t there green beans in this salad? How do you blanche green beans?​

Well, yes. The traditional recipe calls for blanched haricots verts (just the fancy French name). I, however, really hate green beans. You can put them in if that’s what you like! To blanche them, trim the beans, drop them into salted boiling water for 3-5 minutes, and then plunge them into an ice bath to stop the cooking. Voilà!

Should I use tuna in oil or in water?

This is also personal preference. I have convinced myself that tuna in water is healthier and that is my general choice. It is fine to use tuna packed in oil, but drain off the excess oil before adding it to your salad.

How do you keep hard-boiled eggs from cracking?

Lots of recipes call for boiling eggs in cold water. It seems to work better, however, if you start with simmering water and add one teaspoon of salt. Gently place in the eggs once the water is heated and then lower the heat, cooking for fifteen minutes.