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This is an amalgamation of several Niçoise salad recipes and, since it requires many dishes and methods, it gets five eggplants for difficulty.

I was recently talking to the fella about rating the recipes and timing and how to get everything in the right order and how that seems to come naturally to me, so I’ll try to incorporate reasoning into the recipes that I write so it helps make sense of the whole thing.

For this dish, you can either start with the eggs or make them while the veggies are roasting. They can be hard boiled at any point prior and I use Gwennie’s method because it makes sense to me. So, for this recipe, it’s a nine-minute egg. The eggs can sit in the ice bath in a metal mixing bowl until you’re ready to plate, as far as I’m concerned. The colder they are, the easier they are to peel.

A riveting shot of eggs, resting in boiled water, covered. Use your imagination.

As the salad is served room temp, you can roast the veggies next (or first, depending on your egg situation). This will give them time to cool enough to put atop your mixed greens, which are typically fragile enough to wilt under the heat of a roasted veggie. My recently-discovered trick: after the eggs are peeled, wipe out the metal bowl, put all the veggies in and pop in the freezer for about five minutes.

I have not been diagnosed with OCD or Asperger’s but identify with those who have.

I’ve been keen on the bag of peppers from Costco since I don’t care for green (they make me burp) and the red/yellow/orange are usually over a dollar a piece at Woodman’s.

Baby potatoes cut into halves will be chewy in about 35 minutes at 400°. The peppers, thankfully, go along for this ride nicely. Spritz with avocado oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, Herbamare, or any of your favorite seasonings and spices.

Little Ball jars are a staple in the kitchen for mixing up quick dressings.

While your eggs are cooling in the sink, you can steam the green beans using the leftover egg water. You still want the freshly crunch, which is why steaming (for about eight minutes on medium heat) is the best method here.

While waiting for the veggies, you can make the dressing and mix up the tuna. The dressing is just* olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. The tuna is a handful of parsley, capers, minced shallot, and two cans of tuna packed in oil. If you have an abundance of oil left in the can, add it to the dressing. It’s all going to the same place, so it doesn’t *really* matter, but it helps bring all the flavors closer together.

Mayo-based tuna salad is GOOD but this is waaay better.

A couple of the recipes I referenced for this specifically call for Niçoise olives (holy crap, they’re expensive on Amazon!), so if you have a patient helper, get them, otherwise, Kalamata olives will do just fine (and they’re already pitted—a huuuuuge time-saver).

Much of the assembly line.

Fill a bowl with greens (these are the organic mixed greens from Costco, but we’ve been having varying degrees of luck with them lasting more than a day past “best by”) and tomatoes. It looks like a lot of food but will scrunch down into the bowl after everything else is piled on.

The start of a very delicious dinner.

Top with the warmer veggies and dressing. This should, hopefully, get things closer in temperature. I was a bit anxious and hungry, so I may have pressed a bit on this step.

Top with tuna, olives, and a couple of crusty bread slices (as if it weren’t enough food already) and serve to your best friend(s).

Beauty in a bowl.

Niçoise Salad

A veritable mashup of crunchy, soft, savory, tasty goodness.
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Cool Time 10 minutes
Course Main Course, Salad
Cuisine French
Servings 2

Ingredients
  

  • 4 eggs
  • 12 baby potatoes halved
  • 2 peppers sliced
  • 2 cups green beans
  • 2 cans tuna packed in oil
  • 2 tbsp capers
  • 2 tbsp shallot minced
  • 1 tbsp parsley chopped
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 12 cherry or grape tomatoes halved
  • 2 cups greens mixed
  • 2 tbsp Niçoise or Kalamata olives sliced

Instructions
 

For the eggs:

  • Place eggs in a pot and cover with cold water until an inch over (it's really hard to see what a liquid inch is when you're looking down into the pot). Turn heat on high and watch for boiling bubbles.
  • As soon as the water boils, turn off the heat, move pot to a cold burner, and set a timer for nine minutes.
  • Fill a metal bowl with ice cubes and put in the sink. When the egg timer goes off, run some cold water in the metal bowl and put the eggs in there to cool.

For the roasted veggies:

  • Preheat oven to 400°.
  • Slice potatoes into halves, slice peppers into strips, and arrange on a baking sheet (covered with parchment, if you like to make your life easier). Spray with avocado oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, herbamare, and/or your favorite seasonings from Penzey's. Bake for 35 minutes. Remove from oven, remove veggies and parchment to another surface to cool.

For the steamed green beans:

  • Place a steamer basket into a pot of water to make sure you haven't overfilled it. Turn the heat on.
  • Break off bean ends and cut beans in half. When the water is near boiling, arrange in the steamer basket and set a timer for seven minutes, cover. Remove basket and set on counter to cool (there is a theme here).

For the dressing:

  • In the vessel of your choice, add olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper (and some dijon mustard, if you're feeling fancy). Shake, whisk, or otherwise mix together and hold for later.

For the tuna salad:

  • Empty two cans of tuna into a bowl and add capers, shallots, and parsley. Mix well with a fork.

Assembly:

  • Peel eggs, slice in half.
  • Place mixed greens in two bowls, throw in the sliced tomatoes, drizzle dressing over the greens.
  • Assemble veggies, top with tuna salad and olives. Place eggs pleasingly around the bowl edge and serve.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

I’ve had my share of mock-tuna dishes made with a slightly mashed chickpea mixture and think this would hold up well if you wanted to make it vegetarian; do this and omit the hard-boiled eggs to make it vegan.

My Take on Dressing

The sooner you learn how to make (and enjoy the simplicity of) your own dressing, the happier you’ll be. No more half-used bottles of Ranch in the back of the fridge, no more zero-calorie (and tasteless) Caesar dressing, no more salads doused with high fructose corn syrup and whey powder. *Just* oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper (also dijon mustard and agave nectar).

And, if you do want Caesar, Ranch, or whatever, you can enjoy the pure calories of buttermilk cuz you haven’t been using the bottled kind.