The Niçoise salad 

The Niçoise salad (or salade niçoise) is a fresh vegetable dish, originating from the Côte d'Azur. Like any mixed salad, this one also recalls the flavors, the fresh, cheerful and colorful ones that take over, giving the most countless facets of flavors in the kitchen. Like a dip in the crystal clear seas of Nice and the Côte d'Azur, this fresh salad will give you the coolness of the fresh wind in your hair, on a hot day. The Niçoise salad (name certainly deriving from Nice) is a Provencal dish with a distinctly Mediterranean taste, in fact it is prepared with fresh vegetables, where there are also tomatoes and olives, then seasoned with extra virgin olive oil. The recipe, now popular all over the world, very often loses its "originality", fading into numerous variations that then depend on the characteristics that are given to it based on local traditions.

The classic recipe of the Niçoise salad is very simple and involves the use of a few ingredients, such as iceberg salad, cucumbers and tomatoes, with the addition of tuna in oil, sometimes replaced by a greater quantity of anchovies in oil and boiled eggs. All this clearly contributes to obtaining a dish rich in flavor, but also delicious and nutritious.

Ingredients for 4 people

1 head of salad (iceberg)

10 cherry tomatoes

1 cucumbers

3-4 eggs

200 gr of tuna (in oil)

100 gr of black olives 

200 gr of green beans

3-4 anchovies (in oil)

1 spring onion

olive oil to taste (extra virgin)

salt to taste

pepper to taste

How to make Niçoise salad

To prepare the Niçoise salad, firm the eggs for 8 minutes, starting from the boil. Wash, cut and drain the salad well. Boil the eggs (immersion in boiling water with low heat for about 8-10 minutes and then immediately frozen in cold water. Slice the onion and anchovy fillets. Peel the cucumber, cut it lengthwise and slice again, thus obtaining crescents. Add onion and anchovies to the salad, which you have put in a large bowl. Add the cucumber, the quartered cherry tomatoes and the olives. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with a drizzle of olive oil. Mix the salad well, then add the drained tuna. Finally, then add the green beans,and the firmed eggs, cut into quarters. 

Your Niçoise salad is ready to be served!

Tip

It is preferable not to keep the salad once seasoned. If you intend to preserve it, avoid adding the seasoning.