Tuna niçoise salad
A French café classic of little potatoes, crisp green beans, jammy eggs and tuna under a sharp mustard vinaigrette, made with one pot of boiling water.
- 35 min total
- 25 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 2
- About $6.24 a serving
- 610 calories
- Good the next day
- Gluten-free
- Dairy-free
Dolly says: Make the full amount. It’s just as good for lunch the next day.
Ingredients
For 2 servings.
- 12 oz baby potatoes, halved
- 2 large eggs
- 6 oz green beans, stem ends trimmed
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 head butter lettuce, leaves separated
- 2 cans canned tuna, 5 oz each, drained
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- ¼ cup kalamata olives, pitted
From your pantry
- 2 tsp salt, divided
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- ¼ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 610 calories, 39 g protein, 41 g carbs and 33 g fat, and costs about $6.24 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No baby potatoes? Red potatoes or yukon gold potatoes work.
- No green beans? Frozen green beans work.
- No butter lettuce? Iceberg lettuce or green leaf lettuce or romaine lettuce works.
- No canned tuna? Canned salmon works.
- No kalamata olives? Black olives work.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Put the potatoes in a medium pot, cover them with cold water by an inch, add 1½ teaspoons of salt and over high heat.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
High heat
Turn the heat to medium and let the potatoes gently for 4 minutes.
Boil. Boiling means heating a liquid until big bubbles rise and break all over the surface. It’s the fastest way to cook pasta, potatoes and eggs, because it’s as hot as water gets.
How you’ll know: Bubbles are breaking across the whole surface, not just at the edges, and steam is rising.
Medium heatTimer: 4 min
Lower the eggs in gently with a spoon and cook for 5 minutes.
Medium heatTimer: 5 min
Add the green beans and cook 3 minutes more, until the beans are bright and and a knife slides easily into a potato.
Tender-crisp. Tender-crisp means vegetables cooked until just tender but still with a little snap. They keep their bright color and crunch instead of going soft and dull.
How you’ll know: A fork goes in with slight resistance, and the color is bright, not olive or gray.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min
Food safety: For the safest eggs, cook until the whites are fully set and the yolks begin to thicken. Dishes made with eggs are done at 160°F.
everything in a colander, then run the eggs under cold water until they’re cool enough to handle.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
Dolly’s tip: Cold water stops the eggs cooking and helps the shells slip off.Shake the oil, vinegar, mustard, garlic, pepper and of salt in a jar until it looks creamy and .
Pinch. A pinch is what you can hold between your thumb and two fingers, less than an eighth of a teaspoon. It’s a small, forgiving amount, so there’s no need to measure.
How you’ll know: It’s a light sprinkle you can barely see on the food, not a little pile.
Emulsify. Emulsifying means whisking or shaking oil with a watery liquid, like vinegar or pasta water, until they blend into one smooth sauce. It makes dressings and sauces creamy instead of greasy.
How you’ll know: It looks smooth, slightly thick and one even color, with no oil beading on top.
Dolly’s tip: No jar? Whisk it in a bowl instead.the warm potatoes and green beans with half the dressing, then and the eggs.
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
Peel. Peeling means removing the skin with a vegetable peeler or a small knife. It takes off tough or bitter skins, though potato and carrot skins are fine to leave on unless the recipe insists.
How you’ll know: The color underneath is even all over, with no patches of skin left behind.
Halve. Halving means cutting something into two equal pieces. Even halves cook at the same speed, so one doesn’t dry out while the other finishes.
How you’ll know: The two pieces look like mirror images of each other.
Dolly’s tip: Warm potatoes soak up the dressing, so dress them first.Arrange the lettuce on plates and top with the potatoes, green beans, tuna, tomatoes, olives and eggs.
Food safety: Rotisserie chicken, deli meat, canned tuna and cooked shrimp are already cooked. Keep them cold until you use them, and heat them until steaming hot if the recipe warms them.
the rest of the dressing over everything and finish with a little pepper.
Drizzle. Drizzling means pouring a thin, slow stream over the top of something. A thin stream spreads a little flavor a long way.
How you’ll know: You see thin lines across the food, not a puddle collecting underneath.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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