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:
- 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 stop the cooking process. Quickly blanche the green beans in the boiling water (they will be done when their colour turns bright green) and cool under running water
- While the potatoes are cooking, whisk together the salad dressing ingredients
- When you are ready to eat, assemble the plates by adding ¼ of each of the salad ingredients to them. Serve with the dressing drizzled over lightly, or on the side.
DIETARY CONSIDERATIONS
This recipe for easy bean salad is suitable for the following diets:
- vegan and vegetarian
- clean eating
- gluten free, dairy free, and allergy friendly
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MORE SALAD RECIPES YOU'LL LOVE
If you like this easy bean salad, you might want to check out some of our other awesome healthy salad recipes:
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Healthy Nicoise Salad
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Ingredients
Salad
- 6 small red potatoes (quartered)
- ¾ cup puy lentils (cooked)
- ½ cup nicoise olives
- 1 cup green beans (trimmed)
- ½ pint cherry tomatoes (halved)
- ½ can hearts of palm (sliced)
- 2 cups baby spinach
- ⅛ small Red Onion (sliced)
Dressing
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- ⅓ cup red wine vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon dijon mustard
- 1 Tablespoon minced shallot
- ½ Tablespoon capers (minced)
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- 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.
- whisk up the salad dressing while the potatoes are cooking, and set aside for later.
- When ready to serve, arrange half of each salad ingredient on a plate or bowl and drizzle with salad dressing.
This salad looks so delicious! I love lentils in salads as it makes it so hearty and delicious!! Great recipe!
Thank you! 🙂
I've been loving lentils in salads recently. It changes things up just enough to make them feel new again. Great looking salad!
Thanks so much 🙂
A salad like this healthy light nicoise salad is totally my kind of food. I'm a huge salad person and I love it when there is so many textures and bites to it. I'm definitely giving this salad a try
I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
This salad looks delicious! I used to love nicoise salad before I went vegan so I will have to give your version a try!
I need all the healthy salads recipes I can get right now. Perfect timing!
Well this is right up my alley, I eat salads everyday being vegetarian. I love everything in this one and surely will be on my list to make this one!