Chicken Paillard with Chopped Salad Nicoise (2024)

When I was around 4 years old, my parents moved us to Paris. We weren’t there long, but if I’m connecting the dots, Steve Jobs-style, I would be remiss to discount the experience as anything less than an essential stepping stone in my food journey. I forgot the language quickly upon my return. But the smells stuck with me, and still do to this day – the roasting chestnuts, caramelizing sugar on the crepe griddle, and the bread. Oh, the bread.

But for all the sense memories, I rarely cook French food in my kitchen. It just feels too fussy, too pretentious. Hold the beurre blanc and just give me a wedge of lemon for my sole. However, there are two recipes that I’ve been wanting to highlight on this site for their ease and satisfaction. And today we’re killing both of those culinary birds with one stone (one, quite literally).

Chicken paillard is thinly pounded chicken breasts that are then grilled. There are plenty of variations, but the central concept is fairly simple. Salad nicoise is one of my favorite main course salads. You’d think, given that I’m gluten-free and can’t have sandwiches on the majority of menus, that I’d eat more salads than I do. But it takes a special kind of salad to get my attention. So when Food Network gave us “salads with lettuce” this week as our theme, my mind went straight to Nicoise. And because the idea of eating just salad for lunch made my stomach want to eat itself, I immediately thought of combining the salad in some way with chicken paillard.Instead of the neat quadrants of potatoes, tomatoes, haricot vert, olives, and egg in a normal nicoise, I’ve chopped everything together and used it as a topper for the thin, flat bed of chicken below. And as fate would have it, this is the kind of light, elegant lunch that you would serve to your mother on Mother’s Day, especially if she is as big of a Francophile as mine.

Eat up!

Xo
Phoebe