Sixty grams of watercress alone passes the daily value for vitamin K. If you take warfarin, talk to your clinician before eating this salad.
2 servings15 min
Wash the watercress well under running water and trim the tough lower stems.
Shake it completely dry. Water left on it pushes the dressing off and waters the salad down.
Bring a pan of water to the boil, add 1 tbsp of vinegar, then turn the heat down low. Dropped into a rolling boil, the white shreds.
Crack each egg into a small bowl and slide it in close to the surface of the water.
Three minutes sets the white and leaves the yolk running. Lift it out with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper.
Arrange the watercress and the halved cherry tomatoes on plates.
Pour the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper over the top and fold gently.
Set the poached egg on top and add more pepper. Break the yolk and use it as dressing.
The first thing to read in this salad is the vitamin K.
Watercress carries 250 µg of vitamin K per 100 g — 208% of the daily value.
The 30 g in a serving of this recipe is 75 µg, 62% of the daily value.
If you take warfarin, talk to your clinician before eating this salad.
Vitamin K is part of blood clotting, and warfarin works by interfering with it. A sudden rise in vitamin K intake reduces the drug's effect.
Now the evidence.
In the 2026 trial in Nutrients, LDL fell significantly. But it had 26 people, was single-blind and a pilot, and used 8 g of dried capsules, not the vegetable, over 28 days. There was no consistent effect on other lipids, and the paper calls itself exploratory.
So do not expect this salad to lower your LDL. Eight grams of dried capsules is well over 100 g of fresh watercress.
Then why make it? For the composition and the pairing.
Per serving:
| Per serving | |
|---|---|
| Watercress 30 g | 3 kcal, vitamin K 75 µg, lutein and zeaxanthin 1,731 µg |
| Egg, 1 (50 g) | 72 kcal, protein 6.3 g, choline 147 mg |
| Cherry tomatoes 50 g | 9 kcal, lycopene |
| Olive oil 1 tsp | 40 kcal |
| Total | about 125 kcal, protein 7 g |
That is 125 kcal carrying 7 g of protein. At 11 kcal per 100 g, watercress fills the plate without adding energy.
The olive oil is not only for flavour. Watercress's beta-carotene at 1,910 µg and lutein and zeaxanthin at 5,770 µg are all fat-soluble. Eaten without fat, absorption drops. The yolk of the poached egg does the same job.
Why poach the egg. The running yolk becomes the dressing. Hard-boiled, that role disappears and the plate turns dry.
Why the vinegar and the low heat. Vinegar helps the white protein set quickly, and the bubbles of a rolling boil tear the white apart. The surface should barely tremble.
Why shake it completely dry. Watercress is wet and broad-leaved, so water clings. What is left pushes the dressing away and keeps it from sticking. Without a salad spinner, wrap it in kitchen paper and pat.
From here is the safety part.
Do not eat foraged watercress raw.
Watercress grows in water. Wild watercress carries a documented risk of parasites such as liver fluke. This salad is eaten raw, so use cultivated watercress. Commercial watercress is grown in controlled conditions.
Keeping it. Wrapped in damp kitchen paper in the fridge it holds for days. Standing it in water turns it soft quickly.
Taste. Watercress's peppery heat is the centre of this salad. If it is too strong, add more cherry tomatoes — the sweetness and acid temper it.
No watercress? Rocket or baby spinach will stand in. But the vitamin K figure changes — spinach is 483 µg per 100 g, higher still.
Vegetables
Early researchIn a single-blind pilot trial, 26 people took dried watercress capsules for 28 days and LDL fell significantly. But there was no consistent effect on other lipids, and the paper states it is exploratory and needs confirmation in larger trials.
Dairy & eggs
Nutrition dataThe advice to limit yolks because of their cholesterol has been overturned. What remains is choline, a nutrient far fewer people talk about.
Oils & fats
Strong evidenceCardiovascular events were 31 % lower in a randomised trial of 7,447 people. Against other vegetable oils, though, there was no difference.