Tuna in olive oil, hard-boiled eggs, ripe tomatoes, black olives, anchovies and crisp raw vegetables, dressed with olive oil. The purist salad from Nice, with no potatoes or beans, made with solid tuna, green onions and green pepper.
I'm a purist about salade niçoise: no boiled potatoes, no green beans. For me it's a raw salad of ripe tomatoes, eggs, tuna, anchovies and olives with crunchy vegetables and good olive oil, and that's the version here. The café version with potatoes and beans is in the Notes, and it makes a fine lunch, it just isn't the one I make.
Shopping for it here, the tomatoes make the biggest difference: Canadian field tomatoes in July and August taste like the south of France, and in winter cherry tomatoes are the only ones I'd bother with. A couple of Nice ingredients don't really exist in Canadian supermarkets, so I translate them: green onions for the small Niçois spring onions, a green bell pepper sliced very thin for the long sweet peppers, and a few jarred artichoke hearts in place of the small purple ones eaten raw.
Salade niçoise is tuna, eggs, tomatoes, black olives and anchovies on one platter, dressed with olive oil. In Nice it's a lunch on its own. Most French cafés add boiled potatoes, green beans and a mustard vinaigrette, but in Nice the cooked vegetables stay out.
What goes in a Nice-style niçoise here?
Tomatoes, quartered and salted: field tomatoes in summer, cherry tomatoes the rest of the year.
Green onions, white and pale-green parts, for the cébettes of Nice.
A green bell pepper, sliced very thin so it stays crisp but not tough.
Radishes, sliced thin.
Young fava beans are part of a spring niçoise in Nice, but they're rarely sold here: leave them out.
The dressing is olive oil, salt and pepper, with a few drops of red wine vinegar if you like. Mustard belongs to the café version, not this one.
Where to spend the money
On the tuna. Buy it packed in olive oil, not water, and look for solid on the label, not flaked or chunk: it stays in big, soft pieces instead of turning to paste. That's the Canadian shelf's closest thing to a French can of thon entier à l'huile d'olive.
Rio Mare Solid Light Tuna in Olive Oil is at Metro (3 × 80 g), Walmart and Costco (4 × 160 g). It's skipjack, and plain: skip the lemon-pepper and chili flavours.
Anchovy fillets in oil come in small tins or jars near the tuna. Jars keep in the fridge once opened; a tin is best used up the same day.
Making it in Canada
The 2 French ingredients, and what to buy for them in Canada.
Olives de Nice→Kalamata olives, pitted, or Niçoise if you see them
Niçoise olives are tiny, dark and mild. Kalamata are bigger, fruitier and saltier, so use about half the weight and halve them. Avoid canned pitted black olives: they taste of brine, not olive.
🛒 Kalamata olives are in jars in the olive and pickle aisle of every supermarket, and loose at many deli counters. True Niçoise olives are rare at chains.
Petits artichauts violets→Marinated artichoke hearts from a jar, drained, or leave them out
In Nice, small purple artichokes are sliced thin and eaten raw. The big globe artichokes sold here are too tough to eat raw. Jarred hearts are cooked and a little tangy, so pat them dry and use only a few, quartered: they add the artichoke taste without making the salad sharp.
🛒 Jars of marinated artichoke hearts are in the olive and pickle aisle, next to the olives.
Good to know: Make it in July and August, when local tomatoes, peppers and radishes are in season. In winter, cherry tomatoes are the most reliable.
Ready to cook?
Salade Niçoise
Tuna in olive oil, hard-boiled eggs, ripe tomatoes, black olives, anchovies and crisp raw vegetables, dressed with olive oil. The purist salad from Nice, with no potatoes or beans, made with solid tuna, green onions and green pepper.
Prep time
25 min
Cook time
15 min
Total time
40 min
Servings
4
Ingredients
Original recipe: 4 servings.
Instructions
Cook the eggs. Lower the eggs into boiling water and cook 9 minutes, for firm whites and yolks that are just set and still bright orange in the middle. Cool in ice water, peel and quarter.
Salt the tomatoes. Put the tomatoes in a colander, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and leave them 10 minutes, so they give up some water instead of flooding the platter.
Make the dressing. Whisk the olive oil with a pinch of salt, some pepper and the vinegar, if using.
Assemble. Rub a wide bowl or platter with the cut garlic. Arrange the tomatoes, pepper, radishes, green onions and artichokes, then add the tuna in large flakes, the eggs, anchovies and olives. Scatter the basil over the top.
Dress and serve. Spoon the dressing over everything just before serving, and season with pepper.
Notes
For the café version, add 400 g baby potatoes, boiled whole in salted water 12–15 minutes, halved and tossed with 2 tbsp of the dressing while warm, and 200 g extra-fine green beans, boiled 2 minutes if frozen or 3–4 if fresh, then chilled in ice water. Make the dressing a mustard vinaigrette with 1 tsp Dijon and 2 tbsp red wine vinegar.
For those beans, Compliments Frozen Whole Green Beans Extra Fine (500 g) at Sobeys-group stores are the closest to haricots verts. Green Giant French Style (Walmart) are sliced lengthwise, so they go limp faster.
Cook the eggs up to a day ahead and slice the vegetables a few hours ahead; keep everything in the fridge, then let it come to room temperature before assembling.
Once dressed, it doesn't keep: the tomatoes go watery and the radishes soften. Store leftovers undressed, in separate containers.
Salt the dressing, not the tuna or anchovies, which are already salty.
Course: Mains · Cuisine: French · Adapted for Canadian kitchens
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