Moink in the Wild: King Salmon Niçoise Salad Board

We were happy to partner with Ashley Covelli at Big Flavors From a Tiny Kitchen for this delicious and easy King Salmon Niçoise Salad Board recipe! 

King salmon is coated with an herb butter, quickly roasted, and paired with colorful veggies and a tarragon-studded vinaigrette in this elegant Niçoise salad board – perfect for entertaining!

Niçoise salads always feel so special. There’s just something about all of those individual components coming together to make a beautifully composed salad that brings a smile to my face. It feels fancy, but it’s surprisingly doable at home!

I thought it would be fun to turn this classic French salad into a swoon-worthy party board that I could add to my entertaining repertoire.

I’m no stranger to serving food on boards. They’re SO much fun to put together and can be customized to fit any meal or snack time situation. Remember my epic brunch board on a budget? You can apply many of the same layout and preparation tips to any type of board.

This Niçoise salad board is an elegant way to serve a crowd. You can use more or less salmon depending on how large of a group you’re feeding, and whether you’re serving this as the meal or as part of a multi-course spread.

Let’s talk about how I ended up using this gorgeous king salmon fillet first, shall we?

What is Moink?

I got this salmon (plus SO many more beautiful cuts of meat) from Moink, a farmer-owned and operated community that ships humanely-raised, ethically sourced meat straight to your door. Moink is an online source for tender-hearted carnivores who want to purchase quality meat products from family-run farms.

I absolutely love that Moink is bringing products from these smaller farms to a wider audience. I am a big fan of shopping at the local farmers market, but I don’t always have time to run out there or visit multiple farms to be able to get the different types of meat that my family eats.

Moink lets me have the best of both worlds – supporting family farms while also being able to have their products shipped directly to me. The whole idea of Moink is something that really speaks to my family values as well as my desire for convenience.

The beef and lamb that Moink offers are grass-fed. The chicken, beef, lamb, and pork are pasture-raised. The fish is sustainably wild-caught in Alaska. None of the meat that Moink sources contains antibiotics, growth hormones, genetically modified grains, artificial colors, or nitrites/nitrates.

The majority of the Moink animals are “farrow to finish”, which means that they spend their entire lives on the same farm with the same caretakers. Farms like this provide a happier, healthier environment all around, and I really think you can taste that in the quality of the meat.

Moink has several different cuts of each type of protein (hellooooo thick-cut bacon, leg of lamb, king salmon, and French ribeye steak!), and the boxes are fully customizable. Each Moink box contains 13-16 pounds (!) of meat. Moink boxes are currently $159, which ends up being less than $4.50 per serving. Shipping is always free, too, so you get a serious amount of bang for your buck.

I knew what to expect (and approximately how much room to clear out in my freezer) but was still blown away by how much meat was actually in my shipment!

I tend to use meal kit subscription services about once a month, but what I really like about Moink is that I can order a variety of meat and have it on hand in my freezer, ready for me whenever I choose to use it. It’s not pre-portioned with other ingredients for specific recipes, so there’s a lot of flexibility with how and when you use it.

I can use Moink meat in combination with produce from my local farmers’ market like I did for this Niçoise board, as well as things I already have on hand in my kitchen. And I can feel good about supporting local farms as well as other farms across the country that I wouldn’t be able to buy from otherwise.

How does a Moink subscription work?

Moink is a subscription service, similar to the meal kit delivery services. You use one of their box types as a starting point and set up your scheduled deliveries to come every 3, 4, or 6 weeks by default. You can always go into the upcoming deliveries section and skip or add additional deliveries as you desire.

Around 10 days before your Moink box arrives you will get an email letting you know that your order is ready to look at and customize if desired. You can see exactly what cuts of meat have been selected for your box and can go in and swap them out or add additional items from there.

I started with the Beef, Pork, and Salmon box and went over to my dashboard to make sure I got to try some lamb as well. Next time I’m going to get some chicken, too. I wanted to try out the different types of ground meat as well as some larger cuts, so I really mixed things up. I ended up with the following, all in one box:

• 1 pound Ground Salmon
• 1 pound Ground Beef (85/15)
• 1 (1.75-2 pound) Large Salmon Filet
• 1 pound Ground Pork
• 1 (16-20 ounce) French Ribeye
• 1 (8-13 ounce) King Salmon Filet
• 1 (11 ounce) Leg of Lamb Steak
• 1 pound Flank Steak
• 2 (6 ounce) Coulotte Steaks
• 1 pound Ground Lamb

You can also check out the MoinkBox Instagram Story that’s pinned to my profile highlights section to see an unboxing of exactly what I got.

It was close to 100 degrees outside on the day my first Moink box arrived, and I didn’t get to it until several hours after it had been delivered. I was seriously impressed that it remained frozen solid that whole time!

You can check out more about how Moink works by checking out the FAQ on their website. You can also sign up for their newsletter to receive special offers, the latest Moink news, and a behind-the-scenes look at their family farms. The signup form is at the bottom of the Moink homepage.

About Niçoise

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Niçoise salads:

Salade niçoise is a salad that originated in the French city of Nice. It is traditionally made of tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, Niçoise olives, anchovies, and dressed with olive oil… It can be served either as a composed salad or as a tossed salad. Freshly cooked or canned tuna may be used… cooked green beans and potatoes are commonly served in variations of salade niçoise that are popular around the world.

I have used tuna in several variations on Niçoise salad in the past, but my family loves salmon so much that I wanted to use it for this board. There are a lot of components to a Niçoise salad, but you can do a surprising amount of the work ahead of time and keep things in the refrigerator until you’re ready to serve up your platter.

Feel free to add or subtract different items on your board. Having a nice variety of colorful veggies really makes the board special, but try not to stress over having exactly the items that I have on my board on yours. I haven’t everbeen able to find Niçoise olives, so I usually use kalamata instead.

The salmon roasts really quickly, and if you want to have it chilled, you could do all of the prep work in advance and just assemble the pieces on a big platter or board before serving.

Assembling the King Salmon Niçoise Salad Board

Ready to rock?

Get a large pot of salted water boiling while your oven preheats. Make your vinaigrette in a large bowl, setting 1/2 cup aside in a pitcher to serve with your final board.

The cooking time for your potatoes will vary depending on how large they are. Once they’re done, plunge them into an ice bath (a large bowl of ice water) before removing them and tossing them with the vinaigrette. Do the same for the beans, which will cook in just about 2 minutes.

While the veggies are cooking, pat your salmon dry and check it for pin bones. If there are any, you’ll need to use pliers or fish bone tweezers to remove them. Once they’re out, slather the top with your tarragon butter mixture and pop it onto a baking sheet and into the oven it goes for just 10 minutes.

The butter melts as the salmon cooks and the tarragon really permeates the fish.

This would also work beautifully with the larger salmon fillet that I had in my Moink box if I was making this for a crowd. With the king salmon fillet, the amount of salmon is perfect for 4 adults.

When arranging the board, I decided that a bowl was best for the potatoes. I didn’t want them to end up rolling all over while I walked the board out from the kitchen to the dining room. I placed the pitcher of reserved vinaigrette on the board, then the salmon, and piled the other accompanying bits around it all.

I like a few little bowls of items on boards like this, so I used those for my capers and olives and sprinkled a few around the rest of the board as well.

Some fresh herbs, lemon wedges, hard-boiled eggs, heirloom tomatoes, and leaves of butter lettuce finished it off.

I flaked a little bit of the salmon with a large fork before bringing the board to the table. This way people knew that they could flake off and grab as much as they wanted for their own plates.

This board was a huge hit and could have easily been scaled up for a crowd. If I was making this for a larger group, I would have cooked the larger salmon fillet and made double the amount of veggies and just stashed the extra in the fridge, re-stocking items as they disappeared from the board.

I also like giving people the option of more vinaigrette on their Niçoise salads without overdressing everything on the board. That’s why I only tossed the potatoes and beans in it and served the rest in a pitcher alongside.

I’m hoping to have some friends over for brunch soon, and I think this will be the perfect thing to serve.

Shipping is always free! Go to www.moinkbox.com for more info.

KING SALMON NIÇOISE SALAD BOARD

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Servings: 4 servings

DESCRIPTION

King salmon is coated with an herb butter, quickly roasted, and paired with colorful veggies in this elegant Niçoise salad board – perfect for entertaining!

INGREDIENTS

For the Vinaigrette:

• 1 tablespoon minced shallots
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh tarragon
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh chives
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

For the Veggies:

• 1 1/2 pounds new potatoes
• 8 ounces haricot verts
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved

For the Salmon:

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon fresh tarragon, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 (13-ounce) King salmon fillet, pin bones removed

For Serving:

• Butter lettuce leaves
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and sliced
• 1 1/2 T drained capers
• 1/4 cup pitted Niçoise or kalamata olives
• Lemon wedges
• Freshly cracked black pepper