Traditional Russian Recipes

I love sharing my favourite Russian recipes here on the blog! I’ve already shared my ‘lobio’ and ‘Shuba salad’ recipe and now it’s time for another delicious treat – the Olivye salad!

Olivier Salad

Olivier salad (pronounced olive-yeay) is a very traditional, nutritionally balanced and hearty salad popular in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.

You can liken this dish to a western potato salad but with some added ingredients that give it a really unique and colourful flavour profile.

And, while I’ve seen different families and countries make it with their own twist, the basis of the salad is always the same – potatoes, pickles, eggs, mayonnaise and meat.

Olivier salad brings back so many memories of Easter, New Years celebrations and birthdays as my family always made it in a big batch for parties and events to feed large groups of people.

It’s also worth making it in a large batch too as the prep time for this salad is somewhat extensive (much like with my aforementioned Shuba salad!) that it makes sense to go all out and make a big batch to share with family and friends! Trust me when I say that you will really appreciate the fruits of your labour with this one.

This is how my family makes the delectable Olivey salad… enjoy!

Ingredients (for approx 10 servings):

6 medium potatoes (peeled)
1 cup chicken (breast/thigh meat)
2 large carrots (peeled)
6 large pickles
4 eggs
1 can peas (drained)
Couple of tablespoons of dill (finely chopped)
¾ cup mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste

TOP TIP: You can scale this recipe up or down easily – just remember that you need each ingredient in equal parts give or take, so that when you take a spoonful of the salad you get a nice even distribution of everything.

Method:

Boil the potatoes and carrots for approximately 25-30 mins until tender. Try to avoid overcooking the potatoes as you don’t want a mash! Drain and leave to cool.
At the same time cook the eggs until they are hard boiled. Leave them to cool also.
Depending on whether you have cooked chicken or not you will also need to cook your chicken. You can do this any way you like – I like to boil the chicken as it keeps the meat tender and also means you can use the stock for soup at a later date. If you have pre-cooked chicken then you can skip this step!
Peel the shell off the eggs once they have cooled.
This step involves taking the potatoes, carrots, eggs, chicken and pickles and dicing them up nicely into even-shapes throughout. Each ingredient should be equal in shape to the others to ensure equal distribution.
The easy step – combine everything together in a large bowl! This includes all the ingredients you’ve just diced with the mayonnaise, dill and seasoning. The dry ingredients need to be evenly coated in mayonnaise so add more if necessary.

Serving & Storing

I would recommend that this salad is made the day before you want to serve it so that it has time to set and for all the individual ingredients to bind together with the mayonnaise.

My family typically ate this salad as part of a celebratory meal/buffet-style dinner to bring in the New Year alongside some other Russian salads/dishes, but you could just as easily incorporate this into any occasion where you have a group of people to feed. Why not bring this along to a BBQ or pot-luck family gathering?

The great thing about this salad is that it also stores really well and can be kept in your fridge for several days. You won’t want to waste a spoonful!

I would really love to see what you think about this flavourful and comforting traditional Russian salad. Please get in touch with your thoughts if you do get around to trying this recipe out. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Until next time,

Lica xoxo