Gordon Ramsay’s tuna Niçoise salad is a Provençal classic made with tinned tuna, new potatoes, green beans, almost hard-boiled eggs, black olives and baby plum tomatoes, dressed in a pounded anchovy caper vinaigrette. It serves 4 and takes about 25 minutes.
This recipe is called Tuna Niçoise Salad, from Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Home Cooking. He writes: “You’ll often see it smartened up in restaurants with freshly seared tuna, but I think it is much better made the way the French intended, with tinned.” He pairs it with his Pear, Goat’s Cheese and Walnut Tartine in the same chapter.
The one twist he makes: he pounds the anchovies into the dressing with a mortar and pestle instead of laying them across the top. That distributes the salty kick through every bite rather than concentrating it in the few forkfuls that happen to catch a fillet.
Gordon Ramsay Tuna Niçoise Salad
Course: SaladsCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy4
10
minutes15
620
kcal25
Tinned tuna, new potatoes, green beans, eggs and olives on a platter with a pounded anchovy and caper dressing, from Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Home Cooking. He insists on tinned tuna over seared, which keeps this a 25 minute salad instead of a restaurant project.
Ingredients
8 new potatoes, halved or quartered if large
1 lb 2 oz (500g) green beans, trimmed
4 free-range eggs
2 baby gem lettuce, cut into wedges
11 oz (320g) best-quality tinned tuna in olive oil, drained and flaked
2.5 oz (75g) black olives, preferably French, roughly torn
9 oz (250g) baby plum tomatoes, halved
Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- For the dressing:
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp capers
5 best-quality anchovies in olive oil, plus 2 tsp of their oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Small handful of parsley leaves, finely chopped
Directions
- Cook the potatoes and beans: Put the potatoes into a pan of cold salted water, bring to the boil and cook for 6 to 7 minutes. Add the green beans and continue boiling for 3 to 5 minutes until both are tender. Drain in a colander, season and drizzle with a little olive oil. Set aside.
- Boil the eggs: Cook in gently boiling water for 7 minutes for almost hard-boiled. Drain, fill the pan with cold water, crack the shells against the side and leave to cool in the water. This makes peeling easier and stops the grey ring forming around the yolk.
- Pound the dressing: Put the mustard, capers, anchovies and 2 teaspoons of their oil into a mortar and pound to a paste. Add the garlic and a good pinch of pepper and mix again. Add the vinegar, olive oil and parsley and stir well.
- Assemble the salad: Halve the potatoes and peel and slice the eggs. Spoon 2 tablespoons of dressing onto a large serving platter. Arrange the lettuce, potatoes, beans, tuna, eggs, olives and tomatoes as you like, drizzling dressing over each layer as you build. Finish with the remaining dressing.
FAQs
Why does Ramsay use tinned tuna instead of seared?
He says the restaurant trend of searing fresh tuna misses the point of the dish. Niçoise is a working lunch from Provence, built around pantry ingredients. Tinned tuna packed in olive oil has a richer, more concentrated flavour that absorbs the dressing better than a seared steak, which tends to sit on top of everything and stay separate.
Why pound the anchovies into the dressing?
Whole anchovy fillets draped on top give you an intense hit in one bite and nothing in the next. Pounding them into a paste with the capers and mustard spreads that salty, savoury flavour evenly through the whole dressing so every forkful tastes balanced.
Why does he boil eggs for exactly 7 minutes?
Seven minutes gives you a yolk that’s set but still slightly creamy in the centre. A 6 minute egg would be too runny and leak into the dressing, while 9 or 10 minutes turns the yolk chalky and dry. He wants sliceable eggs that hold their shape on the platter.
How should you choose black olives for this salad?
Ramsay includes a tip in the book: “Always try to buy genuinely black olives, which have been left on the trees to ripen naturally.” Naturally ripened olives are dark greeny-brown with uneven colour. The glossy, uniform black ones in most supermarkets are just green olives dyed black, and they taste flat compared to the real thing.
What is the difference between this and his Pan Bagnat?
His Pan Bagnat recipe from the same book is basically a Niçoise stuffed inside a round loaf. He adds mozzarella, which he admits “no self-respecting Frenchman would do,” and presses it overnight so the dressing soaks into the bread. Same flavours, completely different format: one is a platter salad, the other is a picnic sandwich.
I’m Ava Taylor. I’m A Self-taught Home Cook Who Loves Gordon Ramsay Recipes. I Try Every Dish In My Small Apartment Kitchen And Tweak It Until It Works. I Write Clear Steps With Simple Words So Anyone Can Follow. I Share Honest Wins, Mistakes, And Quick Tips To Help You Cook With Confidence.