Homemade Russian salad, the Queen of all appetizers!

Russian salad, the timeless and perfect appetizer for a delicious dinner: here are the ingredients and how to prepare it so as not to betray the original recipe.

Today we discover the recipe for Russian salad, a dish that we have all tasted at least once in our life. It is usually purchased at the supermarket or in a ready-made gastronomy. But have you ever tried to make it at home ? Because we assure you that it's really something else!

Let's start right away and discover how to prepare it: many recipes for this appetizer have eggs while for someone it is just a tastier variant. Let's talk about the biggest difference because then there's no doubt about the rest of the preparation. Here is the magnificent original homemade Russian salad.

• Russian salad, original recipe
• The variants of the Russian salad
• Tips for preparing it
• storage
• Origin of the dish

Original Russian salad recipe: how to prepare it

1. Start with the vegetables: peel the potatoes and carrots and wash everything thoroughly under running water.

2. Once done, cut the vegetables into small cubes, trying to respect the size of the peas.

3. Now cook the diced vegetables in boiling water (except the gherkins), trying to maintain a crunchy texture. Do the same with peas.

4. Once the vegetables have been drained, put them in a bowl with the gherkins and let them cool by dressing them with oil, salt and a spoonful of vinegar .

5. Dress with mayonnaise. Leave in the refrigerator for at least an hour and serve the salad cold. Enjoy your meal!

And here is the video recipe to make it at home:

Do you want to prepare a vegan Russian salad instead? You can follow our recipe, and the same goes for the light Russian salad .

Russian salad: the variations

Now that you know the recipe for homemade Russian salad, nobody forbids you to try variations! If you want to enrich the dish, for example, you can add hard-boiled eggs (which, as someone said, are an integral part of the traditional Russian salad), or mix with tuna mayonnaise, which will give a more decisive flavor to everything.

As for vegetables, here too you can experiment with other ingredients, as long as their consistency is suitable. For example, you can try asparagus, which will give a truly original flavor to your dish!

Russian salad: recommendations

For a slap-up Russian salad, of course, you need to make sure you've sourced high-quality raw materials . As for mayonnaise, however, if you make it at home, you'll have bingo! However, if you don't feel confident in making it, or maybe you don't have time, buy quality mayonnaise.

The real trick, though, is in the size of the veggies and the play on textures. A good salad must be creamy but at the same time guarantee the crunchiness of the vegetables, so be careful not to overcook them, otherwise you risk getting a puree! Also, try to make the cuts of the vegetables all the same!

storage

This quick and easy recipe (and all its variations) can be kept for a maximum of 1 day in the refrigerator, inside a container with an airtight lid. We do not recommend freezing in the freezer.

Russian salad: the history of the dish

The dish, as the name suggests, is a traditional Russian recipe and its invention dates back to the second half of the 19th century. Among the most accredited hypotheses, it is believed that chef Lucien Olivier, a Belgian cook of French origin who worked in the kitchens of the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow, gave rise to this preparation.

It was he who started proposing French-inspired dishes but adapting them to Russian tastes, including the Olivier salad , a name that is still used today in Russia… even if it seems that the ingredients were initially different from those we use today for recipe!