Salad Russe or Russian potato salad with beets, a very popular Eastern European salad, also known as Salade Olivier.
This salad russe recipe could be the vegetarian version of the Boeuf Salad my grandmother used to make so often.
And that Boeuf Salad is pretty much the Olivier Salad, which is famous not only in Russia and Eastern Europe but also in the Middle East and Latin America.
As much as we all loved the classic, a change was nice from time to time, and then she would make this equally delicious Russian salad where she would use beets instead of chicken.
I remember myself as a kid being so glad when my grandmother would come home from the market with a couple of large beetroots in her bag. She would always bake them in the oven, it would take quite a few hours until they were done, but what a treat they were afterward.
Most of the time she would make a simple beet salad with horseradish, but sometimes it would be this salad russe or often enough I would just slice the beets and eat them plain with some bread and cheese. So sweet and delicious.
Ingredients for salad russe
Beets:
- You can use either fresh beets, which you will have to cook or roast yourself or buy the packaged cooked beets. Not pickled beets though.
- I bought fresh beets and baked them myself in the oven, I do recommend that because I think the beets taste best when baked at home, but I admit it is quite a lengthy process which I don't go through myself all the time either.
Mayonnaise:
- Homemade mayonnaise is always best and I do make it all the time for this kind of recipe, but if you don't feel like it, you can use your favorite brand of mayonnaise as well.
- And this is the simplest and best recipe for making mayonnaise with a blender.
Olives:
- When it comes to olives, I always recommend using whole black olives with the pit in. It might take a few minutes to pit the olives, but they taste about a million times better than olives in brine. They actually taste like olives and not water... (Amazon affiliate link).
Otherwise, you will need cooked potatoes and carrots, hard-boiled eggs, and some gherkins, preferably sweet-sour ones.
How to serve Russian potato salad?
This Salad russe would make a great addition to any Easter brunch table, but it is also delicious served on its own as a light meal or you can definitely take it to work or to a picnic.
It contains hard-boiled eggs, so you could make it after Easter with some of the leftover Easter eggs. And in case you have a larger amount of hard-boiled eggs, have a look at this post - What to do with hard-boiled eggs?
More delicious potato salads:
Salad Russe - Russian Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 medium beetroot fresh or already cooked
- 350 g/ 12.3 oz potatoes
- 3 medium carrots
- 3 eggs
- 10 small gherkins preferably sweet-sour
- [about 20 black olives]
- 4-5 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- fine sea salt and black pepper
- some parsley
Instructions
- If your beetroot is not already cooked, wash and dry it well and place it on a baking dish. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees Celsius/ 400 degrees Fahrenheit and bake the beetroot until soft, you should be able to easily prick it with a fork. This will take at least one hour or more depending on the size of your beetroot, keep checking.
- In the meantime, cook the potatoes until soft. Cook the carrots. Cook the eggs until hard as well. Leave everything to cool, the beetroot as well.
- When all the cooked vegetables and the eggs are cold, chop them into nice cubes or slices.
- Remove the stone of the olives and chop them roughly.
In a small bowl combine the mayonnaise and the mustard, add some salt and pepper. - Add the mayonnaise to the vegetables and mix carefully.
- Adjust the taste with salt and pepper again and sprinkle the salad with some chopped parsley.
Cheyanne @ No Spoon Necessary says
I've never had Salad a la Russe before, but it sure is packed with ALL the yum!! I adore a good salad, so I must add this to my list of ones to try! Cheers!
Angie@Angie's Recipes says
A new salad to me..but with all the fresh produce, I know this is definitely something I would love too.
Dawn - Girl Heart Food says
I've never had this type of salad before, but it sure looks delicious! I didn't really eat a whole lot of beets as a child, but love them now - picked, roasted, raw. Such a funny story about your mother-in-law. You actually changed her mind about beets! I mean I can't see how she wouldn't like this salad; I bet you were really happy she tried it!
Agness of Run Agness Run says
A salad is always welcomed in my daily meals. This seems like a palatable recipe! Thanks a bunch for providing such a colorful recipe, Adina!