Asparagus Mimosa Recipe
White Asparagus Mimosa is a classic French recipe that highlights delicate, lightly sweet white asparagus with a lemon-caper vinaigrette topped with minced hard-boiled eggs.
Servings: 6
Calories: 180kcal
Ingredients
- 2 pounds white asparagus
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 6 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon minced shallots
- 1 ½ tablespoons capers chopped
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Rinse, then peel asparagus. Cut off bottom ½-inch of each stalk.
- Bring a large skillet or saucepan of salted water to boil. The pan should be large enough to fit the asparagus spears.
- Turn down heat slightly, add asparagus, and cook for 10-20 minutes, depending on the width of the asparagus stalks. You should be able to easily pierce the asparagus stalks with a knife when they are fully cooked.
- Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice water. When the asparagus are tender, drain carefully (or remove with tongs), and then add to bowl with ice water.
- After a minute or two, use tongs to remove the asparagus, pat dry with a paper towel or clean kitchen towel, and place on a serving plate. Put plate into the refrigerator to chill while you are making the eggs and vinaigrette. Keep the ice bath for the hard-boiled eggs.
- To hard boil your eggs, put them in a deep saucepan and cover with an inch of water.
- Bring to a full rolling boil, then turn off the heat, cover saucepan, and let them sit for 10 minutes.
- Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place into the ice water bath (add more ice if necessary). Let sit for 5 minutes.
- Make the vinaigrette by whisking together lemon juice, zest, olive oil, shallots, capers, parsley, salt, and pepper. Taste and add more salt and pepper if necessary.
- Peel hard-boiled eggs and chop them delicately into small pieces (try not to smash together the whites and yolks).
- Drizzle vinaigrette over asparagus, then sprinkle with chopped eggs. Serve.
Notes
If you want to make this dish ahead, White Asparagus Mimosa will keep for at least a couple of days in the refrigerator. Prepare the asparagus, eggs, and vinaigrette separately, and combine when ready to serve.
Recipe notes:
- Asparagus can be steamed instead of boiled
- Eggs can be hard-boiled using whatever technique you prefer
- Asparagus: White asparagus has a lovely mild flavor that works beautifully with this vinaigrette, but you can easily substitute green asparagus. Green asparagus only needs to be peeled if you have thick stalks. Also, it will not take as long to boil, so watch carefully, and test frequently to see whether they are done.
- Eggs: You can leave these out if you’re looking for a vegan asparagus dish. The caper vinaigrette alone is fantastic on asparagus.
- Lemon Juice/Zest: This recipe uses about one lemon’s worth of juice and zest. You can substitute lime instead or else use white wine vinegar instead of lemon juice and omit the zest.
- Shallots: Feel free to replace the shallots with minced red or white onion, or chopped scallions. Minced chives would also be a good substitution.
- Capers: You can make this vinaigrette without the capers if you’d like, or you can replace them with chopped green olives.
- Parsley: I typically prefer flat-leaf parsley as a general rule, but curly parsley is absolutely fine.
Nutrition
Calories: 180kcal | Carbohydrates: 7g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 12g | Cholesterol: 62mg | Sodium: 195mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 2g
