A gorgeous, healthy platter of pure deliciousness, this Roasted Salmon Nicoise Salad is a truly great thing to have in your recipe arsenal. It’s an all-time classic in my kitchen – the dressing alone reigning as one of the very best recipes on this site. This dressing/dip/sauce is totally worth making – worth grabbing the miso and tahini in the store. But if you don’t care to, please feel free to take my suggested quick subs, if you like. Read on for more, or simply jump ahead to the recipe itself.

In This Post

What is a Nicoise salad?

A classic Nicoise Salad is the sort of salad that is referred to as a “salad composée,” or “composed salad.” This just means that it is composed on a big platter, rather than being tossed in a bowl, and whatnot. Often not containing a leaf of lettuce at all, a classic Salad Nicoise hails from Nice France and features ingredients that are very popular and/or indigenous to that region in the warm, sun-drenched South of France.

What ingredients are in a traditional Nicoise salad?

Tuna
Green beans
Boiled Potatoes
Hard Boiled Eggs
Nicoise olives
Red wine + Dijon mustard vinaigrette

Mmk so, you’ll notice really quickly that we’re straying from the straight line of tradition in my version here today. That’s okay, that’s fin to do with classic recipes from time to time (okay, really all the time). To me, classic recipes deserve to be preserved and honored, but also viewed as canvases for modern riffing. Classic recipes are wonderful playgrounds for culinary creativity, as the bones of something great are already there for you. You’ve got the equipment with which to play, it’s just up to you to know where to begin.

For me, it most often comes down to seasonality and frankly, my own cravings. Canned tuna is not my favorite thing but roasted salmon is. So, that’s an easy swap for me. No one in my family besides me actually likes olives, so I’m using radishes and fresh corn today.

You get the point. I welcomed a classic Nicoise salad in to my kitchen and then played dress up with her a little bit. Literally, actually. Read on for my all-time favorite salad dressing recipe.

Roasted Salmon Nicoise: What You’ll Need

This salad celebrates fresh, seasonal veggies – and strays from a classic Nicoise in some very conspicuous ways for sure. We’re swapping salmon in for the classic tuna, and rather than briny olives, we’re using crunchy, peppery fresh radishes. Because it’s summer as I write this, I like to pile up some fresh sweet corn kernels in this salad as well. But feel free to leave that out, or just use frozen instead. Sweet peas are also a good swap there as well.

INGREDIENTS

24-ounces baby gold potatoes, halved

10 – 12 ounces green beans, trimmed (or just use frozen and steam in microwave)

4 large eggs

Four ears sweet fresh corn kernels

5 fresh radishes, thinly sliced

½ red onion, thinly sliced

4 TBSP butter

Salt and pepper, as needed

4 salmon filets

Simple Dijon vinaigrette or creamy vinaigrette (store-bought), or make my favorite dressing (below!)

The My Kitchen Little House Dressing

This flavor-packed dressing is so special and so versatile, it can be used on just about anything. Sometimes a little squeeze of fresh lemon is also nice in this, in addition to the vinegar. Furthermore, I encourage you to tweak the amounts I’ve listed here to suit your preferences. It’s really all about the combination of things here that makes this such a knockout sauce/dressing.

¼ cup mayonnaise

3 tablespoons tahini

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Two teaspoons apple cider vinegar

3 teaspoons white miso

½ teaspoon garlic powder or ½ fresh garlic clove

1 teaspoon maple syrup

½ teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional, but delicious here)

Salt and pepper to taste

⅓ to ½ cup olive oil or neutral oil

Water, as needed for consistency

How to make my favorite salad dressing

Put all of the dressing ingredients except for the oil in a blender, and blend on high until smooth. Slowly drizzle the oil into the dressing, until your desired consistency is reached.

TIP: To save money and to stretch my olive oil further, I typically don’t use more than ¼ cup in my dressings. Once I’ve used that much, I just add a little water until I reach the thinness/consistency that I like, depending on the use. For dips, I like it thicker, for a salad dressing, this is nice on the thinner side.

Sheet Pan Roasted Salmon Nicoise: How to Make It

This is a very simple recipe, really. It typically takes me about 45 minutes to make and you can take a few short cuts to really whittle that time down even further.

Tips and Tricks

Try steaming frozen green beans in the microwave and just using those. You can also just use store-bought hard-boiled eggs, if you don’t care to make your own soft-boiled per my instructions.

While I think this salad dressing is one of the best things here on MKL, You can certainly use whatever you like. A tangy, mustardy vinaigrette is best here and a good hack is to just doctor up a store-bought honey mustard dressing. I like to add some apple cider vinegar, salt, and a squeeze of fresh lemon to help cut all of that sweetness.

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Adjust the rack to the middle position. Fill a large bowl about ⅔ full with ice water.

Put the potatoes in a large pot and fill with water to cover. Bring to a boil and add 2 tablespoons of salt. Boil the potatoes until fork tender; about 20 minutes. During the last 6 minutes of boiling, add the beans and then (gently!) the eggs. After exactly 6 minutes, carefully transfer the eggs, followed by the beans, to bowl of ice water.

When the eggs are cool enough to handle, peel them and carefully halve them lengthwise; set aside. Drain the beans and set aside as well.

Drain the pot, leaving the potatoes behind. Drizzle them with a little olive oil to coat, and season generously with salt and pepper. Toss.

Place the salmon on a large sheet pan and top with the sliced onion. Drizzle with a little olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Scatter the potatoes around the salmon and roast just until done; about 12 minutes, depending on thickness. (You can leave the potatoes in longer if you like, if you want them crispier).

Transfer the salmon to a big platter or individual plates, and arrange the beans, soft-boiled eggs, potatoes, and sliced radishes all around. Cut the fresh corn off the cob, and scatter that around as well (raw, yes).

Serve with your favorite creamy vinaigrette or tangy, mustardy dressing or whip up my favorite house dressing (below).