Plant-based loaded Nicoise salad - grain, gluten and sugar-free (with an optional oil-free version)
Clean, plant-based, loaded with good-for-you ingredients - this food combined Nicoise salad is the perfect hearty lunch or light dinner to add to your rotation this fall.
Nothing gets my juices flowing like taking a classic dish, and creating a plant-based version that’s clean, easy to digest, and leaves you feeling satiated and good.
And that’s exactly what you’ll get with this plant-based Nicoise salad.
Made with seasonal cooked vegetables like green beans and yukon gold potatoes, radishes, kalamata olives, capers, sun gold and chocolate stripe cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs and simple spices, and chickpea tuna - this salad is beautiful, delicious and loaded with health benefits.
From a health perspective, here’s what I’m loving about it:
For one salad, it offers a lot of variety, giving you a wide range of important and unique vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that work together to help you maintain good health, and help protect against both minor and serious illness and diseases.
The meal as a whole has been designed to honor the guidelines of food combining, which is a way of eating for improved digestion, promoting gut health, and easing any existing digestive issues or symptoms. If you follow food combining principals, you may wonder about how to approach beans and legumes (in this case, the chickpea tuna), since they are considered both a starch and a protein, which is in itself an improper food combination. Since they’re primarily considered a starch, they’re paired best with other starches and vegetables. All this is to say that this meal honors food combining principals, and therefore should be easy to digest and not trigger digestive issues.
It includes lots of seasonal fall produce - green beans, potatoes, radishes, etc. - which means the vegetables are fresher, tastier, more cost-effective and more nutritious than food consumed out of season.
Potatoes are a great source of fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. They also help to make the salad more filling than if you were to leave them out. As well, I recommend keeping the skin on the potatoes, since it contains more nutrients than the interior. It’s high in iron, fiber and a few B-vitamins!
I’ve included kalamata olives as a source of healthy fat, iron, calcium, vitamin A and E, and oleic acid, which is believed to improve heart health and contain cancer-fighting properties. They also (along with capers) offer a lot of flavor.
The only downside (if you can even call it that), is it takes a bit of multi-tasking to prepare.
But here are some tips I found useful to help it come together more quickly:
Make the chickpea tuna ahead of time. I like to make a batch the day prior, that way I can just take a scoop and plop it right on top of the salad.
If you don’t have a food processor, try this mashed chickpea recipe, which works just as well!
Use small Yukon gold potatoes and cut them into quarters, which helps them to cook faster. I simply put them into a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes. Then, I’ll use a skimmer to scoop them out.
Use the same water you used for the potatoes, bring it to a boil again, then blanch the green beans for about 3 minutes, then rinse them with ice cold water. Using small potatoes and the same pot of water for both the potatoes and green beans saves a lot of time.
While the potatoes and green beans cook, use that time to prepare and arrange your fresh vegetables.
One final thing worth mentioning that makes this dish so great, is that it’s incredibly versatile. You can enjoy it as a one-person salad, as a bowl over a warm bed of french lentils, or you can double, triple even quadruple the recipe and serve it as a platter at brunch or your next dinner party - something I can’t wait to do myself.
Anyways, check out the full recipe below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Plant-Based Nicoise Salad
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 10-12 minutes | Yields: 1-2 servings
Ingredients:
(for the salad)
1 cup green lettuce, chopped
1 or 2 small yukon gold potatoes, cut into quarters and boiled.
1/2 cup green beans, blanched
1 radish, thinly sliced
2 tbsp kalamata olives
1 tbsp capers, rinsed
1 large scoop chickpea tuna
1/2 cup grape tomatoes
1 tbsp fresh parsley
1 tsp dried thyme (for potatoes)
(for the dressing)
1 lemon, juiced
2 tsp olive oil (omit if you prefer an oil-free version)
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp mineral salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
Directions
(for the salad)
Place a medium sauce pan on the stove, over a high heat and bring water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook for about 10 minutes (or until tender). Remove potatoes from the boiling water using a skimmer, and let cool. In the same pot of boiling water, immerse green beans for 3 minutes. Remove green beans and rinse with ice cold water.
While the potatoes and green beans are cooking, assemble your salad ingredients on your plate. Once potatoes and green beans have cooled, place them on the salad.
(for the dressing)
Combine all dressing ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until evenly combined.
Pour dressing over the salad and enjoy!
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