Bearing its French elegance beautifully, vegan Niçoise salad is a composed dish that may look fancy, but is incredibly easy to make. The traditional version is often made with tuna, but in this recipe, it’s replaced with baked tofu, which makes a great stand-in.
The array of tasty ingredients making up this platter —white beans or chickpeas, slender green beans, tomatoes, and olives—make it a splendid main dish salad for a spring or summer meal, either for busy weeknights or for company meals.
What to serve with vegan niçoise salad
Served with fresh crusty bread, this makes a light one-dish meal for warm weather. But if you’d like to go a step further, here are a few meal suggestions:
- For an easy summer meal, serve with any combination of fresh corn on the cob, cold soup, or grilled vegetables.
- Pair this with a simple dish of sautéed potatoes.
- Serve with Pasta with Leafy Greens Pesto.
Recipe adapted from Plant Power by Nava Atlas; photos by Hannah Kaminsky, BittersweetBlog.com.
If you enjoy composed salads, see also Vegan Cobb Salad and Indonesian-Style Gado-Gado
Explore more …
- Easy tofu recipes
- Hearty vegan main dish salads
- Green bean recipes
- Ways to use baked tofu
- Easy and tasty chickpea recipes
- Savory and delicious olive recipes
- Fresh Spring Salads
Vegan Niçoise-Style Salad
This vegan Niçoise salad is a composed salad that looks fancy, but is incredibly easy to make, with baked tofu standing in for the traditional tuna.
Ingredients
- 8 to 10 ounces fresh slender green beans, trimmed (see note)
- 1 head Boston or Bibb lettuce, torn, or mixed baby greens
- Sliced fresh basil leaves or chopped fresh parsley as desired
- 8- ounce package baked tofu (or two 5.5-ounce packages; see Note), diced
- 1 heaping cup grape or cherry tomatoes, or diced ripe tomatoes
- 15-ounce can chickpeas or cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- Pitted green or black olives, or a combination
- Marinated artichoke hearts (from a jar, drained, as desired)
- Vinaigrette, homemade or bottled, as needed (see link in Notes)
Instructions
- Steam the green beans just until bright green and tender-crisp. Err on the side of less cooked rather than overcooked. Drain and rinse with cool water until they’re at room temperature.
- On a large serving platter or large shallow serving bowl, arrange the lettuce or greens. Scatter the basil or parsley over it.
- Arrange the green beans, tofu, tomatoes, beans or chickpeas, olives, and optional artichoke hearts in separated mounds over the lettuce or greens. Top everything with a few thinly sliced rings of red onion, if you’d like.
- Drizzle a little vinaigrette over the salad, then pass it around for everyone to dress their individual salads. Serve at once.
Notes
If fresh slender green beans are unavailable, use organic whole green beans, thawed and steamed just until tender-crisp.
There aren't too many brands of baked tofu, but what you'll find will be good! My favorite is Soy Boy Tofu Lin or Smoked; or you can use Nasoya, Trader Joe's or whatever brand of baked tofu available to you.
If you'd like to DIY, here's our easy recipe for Basic Vinaigrette.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
6Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 233Total Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 655mgCarbohydrates: 26gFiber: 9gProtein: 17g
Nutrition data is always an estimate depending on program used to calculate and exact products used. This is given for informational purposes only and accuracy cannot be guaranteed.
See lots more plant-forward salads & sides
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