Panzanella Niçoise Salad
a vegetarian mashup of 2 classics!
Hi friends,
It’s been very hot here, so I’ve been craving hearty salads. I like the kind of salad that’s a meal….a one-stop-shop, delicious, filling, well-balanced room-temp big bowl of goodness!
I was debating sharing a Panzanella Salad or a Niçoise Salad this week, and then I thought….what if I combined them?! I hope I don’t offend anyone from France or Italy, but these salads are both so iconic and delicious I wanted them both. They have some overlapping ingredients so I thought it could work. I have borrowed the composed presentation of the Niçoise and combined it with some key Panzanella ingredients (namely: bread). Plus, I’ve made it vegetarian by replacing the tuna with mozzarella.
Panzanella is a Tuscan bread salad that typically includes torn, toasted day-old bread, tomatoes, red onion, cucumber and basil tossed in a vinaigrette to soak up the juices. What makes a Niçoise Salad unique is that it’s not tossed, but artfully composed on a platter to clearly show each of the components. It typically includes boiled potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, olives, tuna, lettuce, hard boiled eggs, red onion and capers.
Because these salads are so great for entertaining, I included adaptations of each in The Forest Feast Gatherings cookbook a few years ago. In the book you’ll find a Peach Panzanella and also an Arugula Niçoise:
Since it’s the first Friday of the month, I am including this special new Panzanella Niçoise Salad recipe for my paid subscribers below. This salad will be the star of the show (or BBQ!) and is not to be missed!
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Recipes around Substack that I want to try:
whattocook by Caroline Chambers’ No-Stir Zucchini Risotto
Panzanella Niçoise Salad
serves about 6
Ingredients:
