This salad is the ultimate power lunch.  It’s super nourishing, full of summer produce, and takes some time to make, giving you a few moments of zen in the middle of the day to step away from your kitchen table/desk set up and prepare a nice meal for yourself.  This salad does have a few components that do require some cooking, but with some proper timing and cooling, everything comes together within a half hour or so.  Also, this salad is perfectly meal-prep-able, so large batches of each of the cooked ingredients can be prepared and enjoyed throughout the week.

A classic Nicoise salad typically contains green beans, potatoes, boiled eggs, and tuna, with a lemony shallot vinaigrette.  Other recipes will sub in other veggies (totally fine!), but I stuck with the classics here today, minus the tuna because frankly, I don’t have any.  I’m grateful that I have some freshly harvested green beans from my garden as well as very fresh potatoes from my CSA, and I almost always have eggs and salad greens on hand.  After surveying my fridge and realizing I had all of the necessary components, I was on my way to salad heaven!

I started one small sauce pan full of water and started by boiling my eggs for 8 minutes, then moved on to blanching the green beans for about 3-5 minutes, and ended by salting the water and boiling the potatoes for about 15 minutes until tender.  As I removed the items from the boiling water, I ran them under cold water to cool them down quickly and stop the cooking process as I waited for the rest of the ingredients to cook.  I had a convenient hour in between calls and also I’m trapped at home pending my corona test results, so I enjoyed my mid-day cooking time.  This salad is well worth the effort and feels like self-care to make a delightful, healthy lunch, so go for it if you have some time this week!

Recipe down below, photo up top!  This is enough for one generous serving of salad, feel free to scale up for meal prep purposes!

Nicoise Salad

Ingredients:

• For the Salad:
  • 1 cup salad greens of choice
  • 10-15 green beans
  • 2 small potatoes, Yukon Gold or Red Bliss would work great!
  • 2 eggs
• For the Dressing:
  • 1 shallot, chopped finely
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 tsp honey
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ¼ cup olive oil

Method:

1. Assemble the dressing by chopping the shallot, juicing the lemon, and adding all ingredients (chopped shallot, lemon juice, honey, salt, and olive oil) into a closeable container or mason jar.  Close the lid on the container and shake to combine.  Set aside while you assemble the salad.
2. Place two eggs into a small saucepan and fill the saucepan with water until the eggs are fully submerged.  Place the saucepan on the stove over medium high heat, and bring the water to a full boil.  Once boiling, start a timer for 8 minutes to cook the eggs to have perfect, jammy yolks (boil for 10 minutes for fully hard-boiled).  After time is up, remove the eggs from the boiling water and run under cold water in the sink for about 30 seconds to cool the eggs and stop the cooking.  Peel the eggs and cut into quarters, lengthwise. Set aside.
3. Add the green beans to the pot of boiling water, and cook for about 5 minutes, until bright green and tender with a little bit of crunch.  After cooking, remove the green beans from the boiling water and run under cold water in the sink to cool the beans and stop the cooking process.  Cut the beans into quarters (cross-wise) to form manageable, bite sized pieces.  Set aside.
4. Wash and chop the potatoes into bite sized pieces, and add these pieces into the boiling water.  Add a large pinch of salt to the boiling water and cook the potatoes until fully tender when a fork is inserted into a piece, about 10-15 minutes.  Once boiled, drain the potatoes into a colander and run under cold water in the sink for about 30 seconds to cool the potatoes and stop the cooking process.  Shake vigorously to ensure all of the water is off of the potatoes, set aside.
5. Time for salad assembly!  Add the lettuce to a large plate and spread out to form a nice base.  Top with green beans, potatoes, and quartered hard boiled eggs.  Shake the container with the dressing again to freshly combine, and use a spoon to drizzle the desired amount of dressing over the salad.  Store the remainder of the salad dressing in the fridge for future salads!

Enjoy!