Make the Perfect Salade Niçoise
François de Mélogue · Provencal Recipes · Salad · Taste
A debate is raging over what constitutes a “correct” salade Niçoise. To the purists, the rules are clear: no vinegar, no lettuce, no fresh tuna, and no boiled vegetables, like potatoes or green beans. If you add any of these, you will be labelled as a heretic and sent to hell for your sins. To everyone else, any additions are fair game. And so the war rages on between the classicists and the non-conformists.
Like many traditional recipes from Provence, and in this case, Nice, this salad came from humble beginnings. Today, salade Niçoise is served worldwide, but many of these salads have little to do with traditional roots. The Niçoise salad began appearing on menus in the late 1800s after Nice finally became part of France.
The Cuisine Nissarde label was established in 1995 by Cercle de la Capelina d’Or. Madame Renee Graglia was the organization’s president at the time. Today, Nice Tourism awards the label to restaurants that meet several criteria, including cooking three traditional recipes and using local products. Read more here.
Salade Niçoise
Chef François de Mélogue
My version of this meal-sized salad from Nice for the purists and the rest of us.
Prep Time 10 minutes mins
Total Time 10 minutes mins
Course Lunch Dish, Salad
Cuisine French, Nicoise
- 4 ripe tomatoes sliced
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 Green Bell Pepper seeded and cut into thin strips
- 8 radishes trimmed and thinly sliced into rounds
- 1 Seedless Cucumber peeled and thinly sliced into rounds
- 8 anchovies oil-packed
- 8 oz Canned Tuna packed in olive oil
- 1/2 cup Pitted Niçoise or Kalamata Olives
- 10 fresh basil leaves shredded
- 4 hard-boiled eggs peeled and cut in half
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 Romaine Hearts bottoms trimmed and separated into leaves
- 8 waxy potatoes (new or small), boiled until tender and cooled
- 24 green beans blanched until crisp-tender and cooled
- 1 cup celery chopped
- 1/2 cup fava beans shucked and blanched
- 4 Artichoke Hearts cooked and cut into 4
Arrange the tomatoes on a large platter. Season them with salt and pepper to taste. Over the tomatoes, arrange the bell pepper, radishes, cucumber, anchovies, tuna with the oil, olives, and basil in that order. Decoratively arrange the hardboiled eggs around the salad and drizzle with olive oil.
Now that you have made a purist’s version of Salade Niçoise, to make it as you would like, divide the romaine, potatoes, green beans, celery, fava beans, and artichokes onto 4 plates. Serve with the purist’s version as an optional topping.
TIP: I’ll leave you with two last thoughts: It’s virtually impossible to mess this salad up, and rules are meant to be broken. Add whatever you’d like to it—it will be fantastic no matter what.
Keyword Anchovies, Eggs, Potatoes, Salad, Tuna
This recipe appears in French Cooking for Beginners, which includes chapters on Parisian Home Cooking 101, Breakfast & Eggs, Main Courses and Desserts. The first section, Cuisine à la Maison, provides a list of essential ingredients found in a French pantry. There are also details on key equipment and a quick guide to French wines. The other chapters contain delicious recipes arranged in an easy to read fashion along with cooking tips. Antidotes from tasty memories are sprinkled liberally like icing sugar. Here is the review of this cookbook.
More Niçoise Favourites
Salade Niçoise
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Warm Salad Nicoise from Provence
This warm salad is quick to prepare for lunch or a light dinner. Serve with some crusty baguette. For a larger crowd, simply double the quantities.
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Niçoise Salad
What is a true Niçoise salad? An authentic Niçoise is made with raw vegetables; only the eggs are cooked. You have anchovies or tuna, never the two. This salad can be a complete meal with some good bread and a glass of rosé!
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Pan Bagnat (a Niçoise Tuna Sandwich)
This sandwich is often described as salad Niçoise on bread. It's delicious, quick to make and best consumed right away. (Photo by David @Cocoa&Lavender)
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Pan Bagnat
This sandwich is quick to prepare and versatile. Add any extra ingredients that you like and enjoy a taste of the French Riviera in every bite.
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Chef François de Mélogue
François de Mélogue grew up in a very French household in Chicago. His earliest attempts at cookery began with the filleting of his sister’s goldfish at age two and a braised rabbit dish made with his pet rabbits by age seven. He eventually stopped cooking his pets and went to the highly esteemed New England Culinary Institute, where he graduated top of his class in 1985.
Chef François has over 30 years of cross-cultural culinary experience and brings an impressive culinary history and a unique Mediterranean cooking style. After graduating top of his class from the notable New England Culinary Institute, Chef François began his career in a number of highly acclaimed kitchens across the country, including Chef Louis Szathmary’s restaurant The Bakery in Chicago, Old Drovers Inn, a Relais and Chateaux property in New York and Joel Robuchon Gastronomie restaurant in Paris, before opening award-winning restaurant Pili Pili in his hometown of Chicago, rated in the Top Ten new restaurants in the World by Food and Wine magazine in 2003.
Chef François resides in St Albans, Vermont with his wife Lisa and ten-year-old son Beaumont, who has proclaimed himself the family saucier. Chef François' latest publication French Cooking for Beginners: 75+ Classic Recipes to Cook Like a Parisian takes you on a culinary journey well beyond the streets of Paris. Francois is a professional photographer specializing in food/product photography, real estate photography and shooting rural landscapes of Vermont and France. Explore his work on https://www.francoisdemelogue.com/.
Take a look at his website Simple French Cooking filled with delicious recipes and beautiful photos. Also follow Francois on Medium for more tempting dishes Pistou and Pastis.
3 Comments
Double check your link to pistou and pastis (Discover the thoughts). There is a warning saying it is a site impersonating and stealing personal info.
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Thanks for pointing it out – we migrated our web sites to a new location. Here is the new link: https://www.simplefrenchcooking.com/recipe-entry/salade-nicoise