Easy Salad Nicoise

Salad Nicoise, this sounds so freak’n fancy but the first time I ever had this was not at a fancy French restaurant. It was in 6th grade French class, it was my first taste of this delicious salad. My french teacher was relocated from France and she wanted us to taste some of her favorites from her homeland. The funny thing was that she also made cookies, fresh hot chocolate from scratch but this salad is what stayed in my mind. What is a Salad Nicoise? It is a French composed salad of tuna, eggs, green beans and potato. There are many variations to this salad that use seared tuna or poached eggs but I want to make an “on the go” version, something that is easy to make and could go in a Tupperware. Many thanks to Madame Hoffman for introducing me to this yummy dish at a young age.

Easy Salad Nicoise

Ingredients:

4 oz. of canned tuna (packed in water)
1 hard-boiled egg
1 tomato
1 cup of trimmed Harcot Vert (aka. skinny French green beens) or regular green beans
1/2 cup of cooked potato (I like them roasted but you can use boiled)
10 olives (your choice of black, red or green)
1 TBS. chopped red onions
1 TBS. fresh lemon juice
1 TBS. Dijon mustard (I prefer whole grain, but that is my choice)
1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp. organic agave syrup
black pepper
pink sea salt

Directions:

Prepping the ingredients.

Cut the egg into 4.
Cut the tomato into 6-8 wedges.
Boil 3 cups of water in a pot over high heat. Once the water is bubbling, toss in the string beans to cook for 2 min. After the 2min, turn off the heat, drain the water from the beans and plunge the beans into icy cold water to stop if from cooking. Then drain the beans again and set on the side.
Cut the cooked potatoes into bite size pieces.

Making the Jenny’s Lemon Dijon Dressing.

In a separate bowl, combine the lemon juice, Dijon mustard, olive oil, agave syrup, 1/8 tsp of pink sea salt and 1/8 tsp of cracked black pepper.

Assembling the salad.

In a salad bowl, gently combine dressing with tuna, red onions, green beans, potatoes, olives and egg with 1/4 tsp of pink sea salt.
Best served at room temperature.