Make My Day Camp: Goat Cheese Nicoise Salad

Friday, April 8, 2022

Goat Cheese Nicoise Salad

I came across this inspiration photo on my computer from 5 years ago - no time like the present to finally make it! It's a take on 'nicoise salad', which is traditionally tuna, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans and hard boiled eggs. This salad replaced the tuna with flavored goat cheese - yum, I love goat cheese so it was a no-brainer meal I wanted to make. I had all of the ingredients on hand other than watercress, and I decided after 5 years that I wanted to make it immediately for lunch and wasn't waiting for watercress. I could have put it over lettuce or arugula instead, but I only had iceberg so decided to skip the green base, there's enough going on that I didn't miss it. I didn't have marinated rosemary goat cheese so used plain goat cheese and made the dressing out of olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. The other change to the recipe is that I added capers instead of black olives (you guessed it, I also didn't have black olives hahahha). This salad is SO good and I didn't even need or want tuna in it! This is a keeper salad recipe for sure - I'm only sorry it took me 5 years to try it.

I don't know what magazine I found this recipe in, I took a picture of the page but it doesn't show the magazine title. Here's the recipe as printed:

Spread 2 cups watercress on a platter. On top, arrange 1/2 lb. each cubed cooked yukon gold potatoes and steamed green beans; 1/2 cup halved cherry tomatoes; 2 quartered hard-cooked eggs; and 1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives. Spoon on cheese from 1 jar (7.1 oz) rosemary Chevoo (or 5 oz. plain fresh goat cheese). Season oil in jar (or 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil) with 2 t. lemon juice and 1/4 t. each salt and pepper, and spoon over salad. Serves 2