This potato salad recipe is so good. It’s a tasty combination; featuring capers, pickles, onions, celery and olives. Not only is it healthy, filling and tasty it’s a zero waste recipe too.
I make this by first boiling the potatoes in their skin to later peel them for a crispy potato skin topping. This recipe is pretty simple as all the other ingredients are raw vegetables and herbs. You can serve it with a yummy mayo but if you prefer to avoid oils it tastes great without as its the balsamic vinegar that’s important, the mayo is just extra.
But if you do want mayo check out my recipe here.
This salad is great served along side a veggie burger, stir fried vegetables with tofu or perhaps a cold summer soup like my Salmorejo recipe.
Ingredients
For the Potato Salad
Potatoes  1 kilo
Celery  3 sticks
Pickles  70grams
Olives 100grams
Spring onions  2-3
Capers  2 Tbsp
Fresh Chives and or Dill  20 grams
For the Potato Skins
Garlic clove 1 Â or 1 tsp of powdered garlic
A little oil for frying
Pinch of salt
Pinch of Paprika
Instructions
Clean your potatoes and place enough water in a large pan to cover the potatoes. Put the potatoes in the pan with their skins to boil. No need to cut them. Cook them for around 20 minutes but obviously this will depend a lot on the size of your potatoes. To save energy turn the heat off 5 minutes before you think the potatoes are ready and cover the pan with a lid. They can continue to cook a further 5 minutes and you save on your gas or electricity. Don't forget about them though! There's nothing worse than soft overcooked potatoes for a potato salad. Setting a timer is a good idea.
To test wether your potatoes are done use a sharp knife or skewer to see if the instrument enters the potato easily.
Whilst the potatoes are cooking prepare the other ingredients. Slice the olives, the pickles, the celery and spring onions. Finely chop the chives, and/or dill, and set aside. Keep the chives and dill separate from the other ingredients as they serve as a topping.
When the potatoes are done take them out and place them on a plate or bowl to cool down. Put the lid back on the pan and keep the water to cook something else or to add to a sauce. sometimes I use cold left over cooking water to water my plants as we have a well instead of portable water so water is very valuable to us.
While the potatoes are cooling down make the mayo.
Now you can peel the potatoes. It's worth waiting a little longer until they cool down if they are too hot to handle!
Keep the peel in a bowl and set aside.
Chop the potatoes into bite size chunks and place them in the serving bowl. Add the cut up celery, spring onions, olives and pickles to the potatoes and then add the capers.
With a tablespoon pour the balsamic vinegar evenly over the potatoes so all the potatoes can soak it up. Using a spoon gently mix all the ingredients together. Do this slowly so as to keep the potatoes from breaking up.
Place the salad in the fridge while you make the potato skins.
Put a little oil in a pan to heat over a medium fire. Chop up the clove of garlic. When the oil is hot turn down the fire and add the skins and garlic (or powdered garlic). Let them cook, stirring every now and then, until the skins are golden brown and crispy. The crispier the better, in my opinion.
Transfer the skins to a plate with kitchen roll to soak up any unwanted oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and paprika.
Take your salad from the fridge and add the toppings; the mayo, potato skins and chives/dill and serve.
Notes
- If using mayo in this recipe, put a generous dollop of mayo on the potato salad followed by the potato skins and a sprinkle of chives and/or dill.
- You can also serve the potato salad, the mayo, the skins, chives and dill separately and then with each serving add the toppings.
- The size of the peeled potato skins doesn't really matter but any large pieces can be torn into smaller pieces..or not! If you do want to make the skins smaller tear them before frying.
