“Healthy Nicoise Salad is a lightened up vegan adaptation of the classic nicoise salad full of textures and bright vibrant flavour.”

Here we go again with another one of our favourites – hearty salads! Check out here and here for a couple more of our hearty summer salads!

I have always loved the traditional version of nicoise salad, but we wanted to create a healthy vegan version – so we traded the tuna and egg for lentils and hearts of palm and a low oil dressing. The result is delicious and filling salad with a tangy dressing that you truly need only a small amount of. If it is TOO tangy for you, you can dilute it with a bit of water to keep it light and the oil down.

We used puy lentils in this salad and precook them in our instant pot, but you could just as easily use regular canned green lentils for this dish if you don’t want to prepare them from dried. I can’t get canned puy lentils in my area and we like their denser, firmer texture for a salad like this, so we don’t mind spending a little extra time cooking some.

Preparing the rest of the salad is relatively easy – simply cook the potatoes and blanche the green beans, make the dressing, and serve. This salad is also a great make ahead salad perfect for meal prepping lunches, or taking to a potluck or picnic.

Ingredients for Healthy Nicoise Salad:

• puy lentils
• hearts of palm
• red potatoes
• cherry tomatoes
• green beans
• black olives
• spinach
• red onion
• capers
• olive oil
• dijon mustard
• red wine vinegar
• shallot

How to Make Healthy Nicoise Salad:

1. Boil a pot of water and cook potatoes until they are just fork tender. Remove the potatoes and run under cold water to cool and stip the cooking. Quickly blanche the green beans in the boiling water (they will be done when their colour turns a bright green) and cool under running water
2. While the potatoes are cooking, whisk together the salad dressing ingredients
3. When you are ready to eat, assemble the plates by adding 1/4 of each of the salad ingredients to them. Serve with the dressing drizzled over lightly, or on the side.

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5 from 6 votes

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Healthy Nicoise Salad

A healthy vegan version of the classic Nicoise salad with lentils and hearts of palm and a low oil vinaigrette dressing

Course Main Course, Salad

Cuisine French

Keyword healthy nicoise salad, vegan nicoise salad

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 2

Calories 550 kcal

Author Courtney

Ingredients

Salad

• 6 small red potatoes quartered
• 3/4 cup puy lentils cooked
• 1/2 cup nicoise olives
• 1 cup green beans trimmed
• 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes halved
• 1/2 can hearts of palm sliced
• 2 cups Baby spinach
• 1/8 small Red Onion sliced

Dressing

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp minced shallot
• 1/2 tbsp capers minced
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Boil a large pot of water.  Add the potatoes and cook until for tender.  Remove the potatoes, and cool under running water to stop the cooking process.  Quickly blanch the green beans in the pot of boiling water. Cool under running water with the potatoes.

2. whisk up the salad dressing while the potatoes are cooking, and set aside for later.

3. When ready to serve, arrange half of each salad ingredient on a plate or bowl and drizzle with salad dressing.

Chickpea Fattoush Salad is full of tangy lemony Middle Eastern goodness and on the table in 15 minutes – you are going to love this fresh summer salad!

I’m pretty sure I mentioned my love of meal sized salads before when I shared my Gado Gado recipe, and my love for this Chickpea Fattoush Salad with Chickpeas is just as large.

Fattoush salad is a Middle Eastern bread salad made with toasted bread, greens, and other vegetables. It’s usually eaten as a side or appetizer, but we wanted to bulk it up and make it a main meal, so we added chickpeas for protein. For greens we used a mixture of red leaf lettuce and arugula because that was what we had on hand, but feel free to use whatever greens you prefer.

This salad is absolutely perfect for summer: crisp lettuce, cool refreshing cucumber, full of bright beautiful colours and easy to make with ingredients you may already have at home, with the exception of sumac. If you don’t already have sumac in your pantry, don’t skip it – it is the highlight of this salad! It adds a slightly sour taste which plays very well with the zesty lemon juice, and really is the ingredient that makes this dish special, and something that you will want to make over and over again this summer.

Ingredients for Chickpea Fattoush Salad:

• Lettuce
• Chickpeas
• Pita bread
• Cucumber
• Radish
• Cherry tomatoes
• Olives
• Red onion
• Parsley
• Olive oil
• Lemon juice
• Garlic
• Sumac
• Cinnamon

How to Make Chickpea Fattoush Salad:

1. Heat your oven to 400℉. Cut the pita bread into bite sized strips and spread out on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven until crispy about 5 minutes or so depending on the freshness of the bread. Mine were already a few days old, so they toasted pretty quickly.
2. To make the salad dressing combine the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, sumac and cinnamon in a small jar. Shake to mix.
3. Add all the salad ingredients to a bowl with about 2/3 of the salad dressing. Toss well to combine and enjoy!

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5 from 5 votes

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Fattoush Salad with Chickpeas

fattoush salad with chickpeas and a tangy lemon sumac dressing

Course Main Course

Cuisine Middle Eastern

Keyword chickpea salad, fattoush salad, middle eastern salad

Prep Time 15 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Servings 2

Calories 473 kcal

Author Courtney

Ingredients

For the salad:

• 4 cups mixed greens
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley
• 2 tbsp chopped mint
• 1/4 cup sliced olives
• 4 radish thinly sliced
• 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes quartered
• 1/4 red onion thinly sliced
• 1 whole wheat pita cut into strips and toasted
• 1/2 cucumber sliced and quartered
• 3/4 cup chickpeas

For the dressing:

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 clove pressed garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground sumac
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Instructions

1. Heat your oven to 400℉. Cut the pita bread into bite sized strips and spread out on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven until crispy about 5 minutes or so depending on the freshness of the bread. Mine were already a few days old, so they toasted pretty quickly.

2. To make the salad dressing combine the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, sumac and cinnamon in a small jar. Shake to mix.

3. Add all the salad ingredients to a bowl with about 2/3 of the salad dressing. Toss well to combine and enjoy!

Recipe Notes

This recipe does not use all the dressing - it should take about 2/3 of it to dress the salad.

If you haven’t noticed already, roasting vegetables is a big thing in our household! We just love how roasting brings the flavour of the vegetable to another dimension, and if you don’t already roast your broccoli when you make soup with it, you are going to from now on.

Using white beans as a thickener adds some healthy protein to the meal and keeps vegan and dairy free.

With only 5 ingredients and 35 minutes to prepare, this is an easy and flavourful dinner to throw together any night of the week.

Ingredients for Roasted Broccoli and White Bean Soup

Broccoli
Leek (you could also use half a small onion)
White beans
Garlic
Vegetable Stock

How to Make Roasted Broccoli and White Bean Soup

First, I chop the broccoli into bite sized chunks. I also use the stem in this recipe. Simply cut off the bottom inch of the stalk, then trim off the tough exterior skin of the stalk. Chop the remaining interior of the stalk into bite sized pieces. Put all the broccoli pieces into a large bowl and add the olive oil and season with salt and pepper and add the crushed garlic.

Trim the leek and slice in half lengthwise. Slice the leek halves into little cresent slices then toss them in the bowl from the broccoli. Toss the vegetables until the pieces are evenly coated with the oil and seasoning.

Spread the vegetables out evenly across a large baking sheet. The pieces will roast better if they have space between them, and better roasting means better flavour!

Pop the tray in the oven for 20 mins.

When the vegetables have finished roasting, remove them from the oven and place them in a large pot on the stove. Add the vegetable stock and bring the soup to a boil. Simmer the soup for 10 minutes then using your immersion blender, blend the soup up in the pot until it reaches your desired consistency – I like my soup completely blended, James prefers his left a bit chunkier. Enjoy!

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5 from 2 votes

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Roasted Broccoli and White Bean Soup

Roasted broccoli soup with white beans and garlic

Course Soup

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Servings 4 servings

Calories 160 kcal

Author Courtney

Ingredients

• 1 large bunch Broccoli (florets and stems)
• 1 tablespoon Olive oil
• 3 cloves Garlic
• 1 Leek
• 1.5 cups Cannellini Beans (1 can drained)
• Sea salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 450℉

2. Chop the broccoli into bite sized chunks and place in a large bowl

3. Trim the leek, then slice into crescents. Add them to the bowl with the broccoli along with the oil and garlic.  Season with salt and pepper, then toss until the vegetables are evenly coated.

4. Place the vegetables on a large baking sheet, ensuring that there is as much space as possible between pieces. Roast for 20 mins

5. Remove the vegetables from the baking tray, and place into a soup pot aloing with the vegetable stock.  Bring the pot to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.

6. Using an immersion blender, blend the soup in the pot until it reaches your desired consistency.  If you do not have an immersion blender, you can also do this with a regular blender but you will need to blend the soup in two batches.