Salad Nicoise Recipe From the Prepper's Pantry

Bowl filled with classic tuna salad nicoise. Image courtesy Sharon Aschaiek from Pixabay.

Hearty Lunch or Dinner Salad

Salad nicoise is a simple dish that can be made with pantry ingredients you have on hand. The classic version is made with tuna, lettuce, hardboiled eggs, black olives, green beans and cooked potatoes. But you can get creative and substitute ingredients from your survivalist pantry and refrigerator where necessary.

I thought my mom (AKA THE OMA of Oma's Prepper's Pantry) didn't have any tuna on hand in her laundry room pantry so I substituted some leftover chicken breast.

Salad Nicoise Ingredients

• 1/2 cup cooked, chopped chicken breast or 1 can tuna drained
• 1 1/2 cups cooked green beans - cut in thirds
• 1/2 to 1 can potatoes - drained and cut in thirds
• 1/3 cup - sliced black olives
• 1/3 cup - Balsamic vinaigrette or Italian dressing
• 1 head - Romaine lettuce
• 4 hardboiled eggs - sliced

Salad nicoise is traditionally made with tuna. Image courtesy FlyerBine from Pixabay.

How to Make Salad Nicoise 

I like to make the hardboiled eggs and potato and green bean salad in advance so I have all the ingredients on hand when it's time to build the salad. I had 1/2 can of potatoes in the fridge, so that's what I used. But, if you have a whole can in your pantry, you can double the amount of potato called for.

Use this recipe as a basic guideline and customize it however you like. The Salad Nicoise recipe I found in The Bakery Lane Soupbowl Cookbook called for sliced green peppers, which I didn't use, but add some bell peppers if you'd like. I think this salad would also work well with a few sliced tomatoes or cucumbers, especially if you're making the classic version with tuna. 

• Toss the cooked green beans and sliced potatoes with the vinaigrette dressing and place in the refrigerator until you are ready to build the salad
• Remove the core from the Romaine lettuce and tear into bite size pieces
• Line a large serving platter with the lettuce
• Mound the potato and green bean salad in the middle of the platter
• Arrange the sliced hardboiled eggs, black olives and chicken (or tuna) around the outside edges of the platter
• You can eat the salad immediately or cover and place in the fridge until you're ready to serve
• Serve with additional dressing or vinaigrette on the side 

Chicken Salad Nicoise

The picture below shows the actual final dish - the salad nicoise that I made after raiding Oma's pantry. Here's the original comment I made on Facebook after posting up a photo of the finished salad:

"Oma says we need to go grocery shopping. That's not true, I just "shopped" her pantry and fridge and found all the ingredients to make Salad Nicoise the chicken edition. It's normally made with tuna but we didn't have any so cluck, cluck and time to eat. That's an old copy of the Bakery Lane Soup Bowl cookbook in the background, it used to be a favorite place to eat in VT but they closed years ago. The cookbook is like blast from the past."

Salad nicoise using chicken in place of tuna. Image courtesy Lynn Smythe from The Creative Cottage lifestyle blog.

FYI: Here is the link to the original Oma's Prepper's Pantry post with links to all the recipes in this series.

Do you have any great ideas for keeping your stash of perishable and non-perishable food supplies fresh and using up what you have on hand in various recipes and dishes?

Leave a comment at the end of this post - I'd love to hear your ideas!

Take care,

Survivalist Queen