Ahi Nicoise Salad
The greens have been rolling in from the farm like crazy. Not my farm, but a local farm we are friends with…DC Roots! I love their stuff so much! And they grow gorgeous greens. The point is, we’re eating a lot of greens right now. And it feels sooooo good. There is nothing like local grown artisan greens….nothing. I could eat pounds of them.
Back to this salad….it’s an oldie but a goodie. It’s also a substantial salad often served as an entree. This is a great option to serve a crowd when you don’t want to spend hours in a hot kitchen. Pepper crusted tuna seared rare elevates this dish from the canned tuna version. The tuna cooks quickly so you can go out and enjoy the sunshine.
I add roasted beets to mine, but it’s really up to you. I like to prep everything the day before so that all I have to do is assemble the thing before guests arrive. Beets can roast in the oven while you do something else the day before. Then it’s just boiling some baby potatoes and blanching some green beans and you’re set until you’re ready to serve it the next day.
Nicoise Salad For A Crowd
Ingredients
- 2 lbs baby potatoes boiled and chilled
- 1 lb ahi tuna
- 3 tablespoons peanut oil
- 2 lbs young green beans blanched
- 12 large radishes quartered
- 3 large beets roasted chilled, and julienned
- 2 english cucumbers sliced in quarters
- 2 pints cherry tomatoes
- 12 hard boiled eggs chopped
- 1 jar kalamata olives pitted
- 1 jar castelvetrano olives pitted
- 1 -2 lbs baby greens
- 1 cup parsely destemmed and packed
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/3 cup white balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup dijon mustard
- 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 2 tablespoons honey
- Kosher salt
- Fine ground black pepper
Instructions
- For the dressing, combine the parsley, vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, olive oil, garlic, honey in a blender or immersion blender. Salt and pepper to taste the dressing and set aside in the fridge.
- Next, coat all the ahi in fine ground black pepper and fry in a skillet on medium high heat in the peanut oil. Using tongs, flip the tuna once, cooking for about 5-8 minutes total for medium rare. Set the tuna aside to cool.
- On one or two large platters arrange all the vegetable in groups. Get all of the greens washed and into a seperate bowl. Slice the tuna carefully across the grain and arrange it on top of the vegetables.
- Serve with crusty baguettes and the salad dressing on the side. Voila!
