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Olivier Salad – plated and served
SaladsWinterChristmasVegetarianRussian

Olivier Salad

The Russian potato salad with peas, egg and pickles, creamy and festive.

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Preparation
35 min
Cook/bake time
25 min
Total
3 hr
Difficulty
Easy
Calories
616 kcal
Servings
6
Prep
35 min
Cooking & baking
25 min
Resting
2 hr

Only 1 hr of that is hands-on – the rest takes care of itself.

The Russian potato salad with peas, egg and pickles, creamy and festive. All ingredients are diced evenly small, because exactly this uniform size creates the typical texture where every forkful contains everything. In Russia, it belongs to New Year's Eve just like a roast does elsewhere.

Why this works

Waxy potatoes boiled in their skins absorb hardly any water because the skin acts as a barrier. Boiled peeled, they soak up water and fall apart when diced. The second reason for preparing them the day before is starch: as it cools, it rearranges itself and makes the potato firm enough to slice, so the cubes keep their edges. And because all ingredients are the same size, there is no dominating bite, every forkful contains the complete salad.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Cook the vegetables

    Boil the potatoes and carrots unpeeled in salted water until they are just soft, which takes twenty to twenty-five minutes depending on their size. Cooking them unpeeled makes them cook more evenly and draw less water, which is important for the consistency of the salad. Let them cool completely, preferably overnight.

  2. Boil the eggs

    Hard-boil the eggs for nine minutes, rinse them in cold water and peel them. A hard-boiled egg with a completely firm yolk is right here, because soft yolks would smear when mixed and turn the salad gray. Let them cool completely as well.

  3. Dice everything evenly

    Peel the potatoes, carrots and eggs and dice them together with the pickles, sausage and onion into even pieces of about half a centimeter. Take your time for this, because the uniform cube size is the real hallmark of this salad and determines the mouthfeel.

  4. Mix the dressing

    Stir the mayonnaise, sour cream and mustard into a smooth sauce and season it with salt and plenty of pepper. The sour cream makes the dressing lighter than pure mayonnaise without the salad losing any creaminess. Taste and salt rather cautiously, because the pickles and sausage already bring a lot of salt.

  5. Mix and let rest

    Put all the diced ingredients and the drained peas in a large bowl and gently fold in the dressing so that the peas remain whole. Chill the salad covered for at least two hours, preferably overnight. Only then do the flavors combine. Sprinkle dill over it before serving.

Our best tips

  • Boil potatoes and carrots unpeeled and prepare them the day before, then they can be diced cleanly.
  • Cut everything to the same size. It is more work, but it makes up the whole character of the salad.
  • Let it rest for at least two hours. Freshly mixed, it tastes significantly flatter.

Tasty variations

Vegetarian

Omit the sausage and use 200 g diced apple and more egg instead.

With shrimp

Instead of sausage, fold in 250 g North Sea shrimp, a festive and lighter variation.

Nutrition facts

Per serving (1 portion)
Calories616 kcal
Protein19 g
Carbohydrates26 g
– of which sugar8 g
Fat46 g
Fiber6 g

Where the 616 kcal come from

per serving
Calculated from the ingredients – how we do it

We add up reference values for every ingredient and divide by the number of servings. These assumptions are baked in:

  • Reference values per 100 g – for the raw ingredient, exactly as listed.
  • Tinned goods count at drained weight, bone-in meat at purchase weight: you eat about 70 per cent of a chicken thigh and leave the rest.
  • Water evaporates as you cook. The energy stays in the pot, the weight does not – so the figure is per serving, not per 100 g of finished dish.
  • Anything listed without a quantity – “salt and pepper” – is not counted.

A guide value, not a lab measurement: no two onions weigh the same, and fat content varies from pack to pack.

How we calculate nutrition →

Frequently asked questions

Why is the salad called Olivier?

It goes back to the Belgian-French chef Lucien Olivier, who served it in a Moscow restaurant in the 19th century. The original recipe was lost.

How long does it keep?

Two to three days in the refrigerator. Because of the mayonnaise, it should always be kept well chilled and not stand at room temperature for long.

Which sausage is right?

Traditionally Doktorskaya, a mild scalded sausage. Bologna or mortadella come closest to this, cooked chicken is the lighter alternative.

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