Although I happily ate “salade Niçoise” with green beans and potatoes for years before living in France, I quickly found out this was blasphemy. A sacrilege. The wrong way of making it. Traditionally, this salad originating from the beautiful town of Nice does not have either of these ingredients. Even the tuna we often see on it is optional. The real mccoy is quite different. In fact, a famous former mayor of Nice called Jacques Medecin who is also known for his famous cookbook on Niçoise cuisine shared his recipe of this famous salad and it consists of tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, anchovy, egg, scallions, black olives, green edamame-looking beans called “fevettes”, garlic and basil. Of course, everyone’s got their own version but that is the base.
Here is my favorite variation of it and one that you will often find when dining in downtown Nice. As it just so happens, I had this exact plate the other day, as I plopped down ravenous after some shopping in the old town. It was refreshing, crunchy, healthy-feeling, and just delicious. Filling enough to keep me going for the afternoon, but light enough to leave room for a late-day scoop of ice cream at the beach. At home, I regularly make this over the summer months and it made a regular appearance on our lunch table when living in Dubai.
NOTE: fevettes are a variety of small broad beans, which are easy to find in southeastern France throughout spring and summer and can be eaten raw. I suspect it because they are hard to find elsewhere that green beans were introduced in the salade Nicoise we often see outside of France. I see them as optional so don’t sweat it if you can’t get your hands on them. You could also sub them for edamame that you blanch and cool.
Ingredients
- 2 handfuls of mesclun (one per person), washed and dried (this is not traditional, but a lot of people add mesclun as a base to the salad)
- 1 cucumber, thinly sliced
- 2 medium tomatoes, sliced
- 1 green or red bell pepper, seeded and sliced thin
- 1 rib celery, chopped finely
- 4 radish, thinly sliced
- a handful of “fevettes” (can be subbed for edamame or omitted)
- 2 scallions, chopped (optional – if you are like me and cannot deal with raw onion/scallions, go ahead and omit but the traditional recipe calls for it and the Nicois love their scallions)
- 2 hard-boiled eggs, shelled and quartered
- 8 anchovy fillets
- 1 can tuna, drained and crumbled
- A dozen of black olives
- a few fresh basil leaves
Dressing
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil
- 2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 garlic clove, minced finely
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Prepare the vinaigrette by whisking together the olive oil, vinegar, and garlic in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
- Take out two large plates or single-serving salad bowls and arrange the salad:
Place the mesclun at the bottom of each plate. Layer the tomatoes, cucumber slices, bell peppers, radish, celery, fevettes/edamame, and scallions on top of the mesclun. Top each salad with the egg quarters, 4 fillets of anchovy, half the crumbled tuna, half the olives, and half the chopped basil. Drizzle with the dressing and serve.
Traditional “fevettes”
I also show you these in my Instagram reels if you want to check that out.
