Salads
Salade niçoise
La salada nissarda
The real salade niçoise from Nice — raw vegetables, tuna or anchovies, eggs and olive oil. No potatoes, no green beans. Step-by-step recipe.
Published · Updated
- Prep
- 25 min
- Cook
- 10 min
- Total
- 35 min
- Serves
- 6
- Difficulty
- Easy
Method
Hard-boil the eggs for 9–10 minutes, cool them in cold water, peel and quarter them.
Cut the tomatoes into wedges or thick slices, salt them lightly and leave them in a colander for 10 minutes to release some of their water.
Peel the cucumber if the skin is thick and slice it thinly. Slice the green onions and the pepper into thin rings.
If using artichokes, remove the tough outer leaves, cut off the tips, halve them, scrape out any choke and slice very thinly; drop the slices into water with lemon juice so they do not darken. Pop the fava beans out of their skins.
Rub a wide, shallow dish with a cut clove of garlic if you like. Arrange the tomatoes, then the cucumber, pepper, onions, artichokes and fava beans.
Top with the tuna in flakes (or the anchovy fillets), the egg quarters and the olives. Tear the basil over the salad.
Whisk the salt into the vinegar until dissolved, add pepper, then whisk in the olive oil. Dress the salad at the table, just before serving.
Tips
- Make it only when tomatoes are truly ripe. Fewer, better vegetables beat a full list of out-of-season ones.
- Tuna and anchovies were traditionally alternatives — anchovies for everyday, tuna for special days. Using both is common today.
- The same ingredients stuffed into a round bread soaked with olive oil make pan bagnat, the Niçoise sandwich.
Watch it being made
Niçoise salad :Healthy and delicious French summer recipe — French Cooking Academy (YouTube). The player loads only when you press play.
A salad of raw vegetables
Salade niçoise — la salada nissarda in the Niçois language — was never a restaurant invention. It is what people in Nice ate in summer when the garden was full: sun-ripened tomatoes, young onions, peppers, tiny purple artichokes and fresh fava beans, dressed with the local olive oil. Anchovies or tuna, eggs and small black olives turned it into a meal.
Because it was so ordinary, the dish rarely appeared in old cookbooks. That is also why so many versions exist outside Nice. The local rule is simple: the vegetables are raw. Boiled potatoes, green beans, rice or lettuce belong to other salads, not to this one.
Choosing the ingredients
- Tomatoes carry the salad. Choose ripe, fragrant ones — in Nice the round, slightly ribbed varieties from local gardens are preferred.
- Olives should be the small Cailletier olives of the Nice area, left whole with their stones.
- Olive oil: use a good extra-virgin oil; its taste is the dressing.
- Artichokes and fava beans are spring vegetables; leave them out the rest of the year rather than using frozen or canned ones.
Serving
Serve the salad in one large, shallow dish and dress it at the table. Bread is essential — to soak up the juice of the tomatoes mixed with olive oil at the bottom of the bowl. With a glass of chilled rosé from Bellet, the local wine, it makes a complete summer lunch.
Questions & answers
Does a real salade niçoise contain potatoes or green beans?
No. In Nice the salad is made only with raw vegetables. Cooked potatoes and green beans are a later, non-local addition; hard-boiled eggs are the only cooked ingredient.
Tuna or anchovies?
Either. Anchovies are the older, more everyday choice; tuna became common later. Many cooks in Nice use one or the other, not both.
Can I prepare salade niçoise in advance?
You can prepare the vegetables and eggs a few hours ahead and keep them cold, but assemble and dress the salad just before serving so the tomatoes stay firm.
