Forget Classic Potato Salad: Make It Spanish-Style With These 3 Ingredients

While some literary heroes tilt at windmills or chase enormous whales, we're content to quest after achieving the perfect potato salad. This journey has led us in many delicious directions, like adding potato chips to our salad for texture and flavor, or even whipping up a red, white, and blue potato salad that colorfully celebrates America's Independence Day. Perhaps the most fruitful avenue of potato salad deep-dives has been turning to worldwide variations on chilled 'taters in mayo-based dressings — we really dig Spain's "ensaladilla rusa," which translates to "little Russian salad." The curious naming of this tapa — more on that in a minute — isn't even the most interesting thing about the dish. We love the inclusion of peas, carrots, and high-quality tuna in a potato salad that is absolutely buckwild with variations and really allows home cooks to flex their culinary creativity.

Allegedly, ensaladilla rusa came about due to an "Olivier salad" composed in Russia in the middle of the 19th century. In modern terms, she's a global gal. The ingredients in the original Olivier salad were a secret, but premium components like caviar and spendy seafood featured in there visibly. As the salad made its way across Europe, it acquired a budget-friendly facelift, and canned tuna got swapped for pricer proteins. There are about a zillion other possible ingredients in ensaladilla rusa, like hard-boiled eggs, pimento peppers, and/or shrimp, but the basics you need to replicate this bomb potato salad are just tuna, peas, and carrots. You can even get the latter two from a frozen bag. This dish is all about turning humble ingredients into something special.

Knowing exactly how to source the right ingredients for your Spanish potato salad will guarantee that you enjoy maximum flavor. An aspect that sets this dish apart is a garlicky mayo – you can make your own aioli for culinary street cred, or simply add some roasted garlic into your store-bought condiment of choice. While we're at it, let's talk tuna. Celebrity chef Ina Garten makes a simple substitute in her tuna salad – she uses oil-packed tuna instead of tuna canned in water. Tuna in olive oil has a stronger flavor that will shine in your potato salad. Is your salad still not potent enough to sate your adventurous tastebuds? You could really full-send the Mediterranean influence and stir some flaked canned anchovy filets into your potato salad for a briny, umami-packed flavor explosion.

Spain's jamón, or ham, is world-famous, and we also can't help but feel that, if you want to get extra with ingredients, some nice diced or cubed smoked pork would really shine in this bowl. We personally love egg in potato salad and prefer the versions of ensaladilla rusa that include it, because the additional protein makes it pivot into more of a "main dish" direction in our estimation. Of course, all you actually need to switch up your regular potato salad rotation are the peas, carrots, and tuna. Still, we feel that Spanish-style potato salad beckons the home chef to get creative ... it's in the spirit of the dish's history, after all!

@saifchefman

Ensaladilla Rusa (Russian Salad) An elite tapas/dip that only gets better the next day. The best I've had in Spain went heavy on the pickled ingredients so I've gone all out with the cornichons, capers, olives and peppers. Perfect with breadsticks, crisps, bread, or justnstraight out of the bowl. *Ingredients / Ingredient List* – 300g waxy (charlotte) potatoes, lightly mashed – 1 small carrot, parboiled and finely diced – 2 boiled eggs (traditionally hard-boiled, I prefer medium) – 100g tuna in olive oil, drained – 100-120g low fat mayo – 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil – 60g green olives, finely chopped – 40g cornichons, finely chopped – 2 tbsp capers, finely chopped – 1/2 tsp Smoked paprika – 50g roasted red peppers, finely diced – Optional: Large handful of salted crisps crushed in – Black pepper to taste – Salt to taste #tapas #spanishfood #dips #salad (lol) #comfortfood

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