Salad Nicoise: What’s Cooking in Keri’s California Kitchen, A New Day, a New Year, and a Fresh Start…on Everything

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m so glad you’re here!

The world seems a little fresher today: the sky is a crystal-clear blue you see after a good, cleansing rain, the air is chilly and smells fresh and sweet and it’s warm in the sunshine. I love this kind of winter day in California–it feels like a new beginning–a new day–a fresh start.

A lot of us–including me–are setting goals for ourselves to turn a leaf in 2026. Mine is pretty simple: to have a life and to treat each day like a new beginning and a new opportunity to do better: better for myself, for my health, for my wonderful husband, for my fabulous friends, for my family, for my community and for God.

And to do my best for this little fella, Rocky, who has been the best kind of new beginning I’ve had in I don’t know how long:

With doing better for our health as a backdrop, let’s get this week started with a healthy dinner: Salad Nicoise:

Salad Nicoise sounds pretty grandiose, but it’s actually really easy to put together and bonus: SUPER healthy!

Years ago, when I was working as a manager at a department store, my boss bragged that she had traveled to Paris when she was in college and had taken a couple of cooking classes at Le Cordon Bleu. I was blown away, jealous beyond belief and totally impressed. She said “oh yes–I can make a wonderful Salad Nicoise!” Not really knowing what Salad Nicoise was, I was yet again devastated with jealousy.

But now, I say, “who can’t?”

Salad Nicoise is dead simple to make, and one of those “clean out your fridge” sorts of recipes, as far as I’m concerned. It generally (and I do mean “generally”) includes tuna, fingerling potatoes (but just cut up a medium potato in a pinch), lettuce, haricots vert, hard-boiled eggs (although these are kind of optional) and a nice vinaigrette. But…whatever. I would say that the only ingredients that are sort of required are the tuna, potatoes, lettuce and vinaigrette. After that, it’s pretty much up to you.

I love to add red bell peppers, asparagus or broccoli (whatever’s in season), fresh corn when it’s in season, avocado, and kind of anything else that’s in season that I need to use up at the end of the week.

I always use a beautiful, fresh, sushi-grade piece of tuna that I sear for a minute on each side, but I’ve also seen recipes that tell you to just open up a can of tuna. I don’t know if I’d do that…but in a pinch–any port in a storm, right?

And here’s the dirty little secret: if you serve this to guests, and tell them that you learned how to make it in Paris at Le Cordon Bleu–they’ll buy it! It makes a beautiful presentation and you’ll be quite the host about town!

The best part about this meal? It’s one and done, very healthy and a great way to use up the bits and bobs at the end of the week.

Here are some suggestions for what you’ll need (but again, think creatively–very few rules apply here):

Sushi-grade tuna

Fingerling potatoes (or a Yukon Gold potato cut into slices

Haricots verte

Lettuce

Basic vinaigrette

Red bell peppers

Avocado

Cherry tomatoes

Boiled eggs

Thanks for tuning in today and be sure to tune in later in the week for more recipes and tales from my kitchen.