Healthy Nicoise Salad

“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.