Spanish “Russian” Potato Salad is one of those warm weather recipes that I always turn to. It’s easy to make, it’s filling in small quantities, and it just tastes like good home cooked food. If you do a quick glance through the ingredient list, you’re probably thinking “TUNA in my potato salad?!” However, trust me…it’s delicious! I first tasted Spanish “Russian” Potato Salad when my host mother in Spain made it for me for lunch one day. Nati knew how much I loved food, so she slowly told me all of the ingredients that went into it. It took me a couple of years to find that same recipe in English. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop making it. I could go on and on about all the great Spanish recipes there are, but some of my most favorite one are the simplest. The trick to a lot of these recipes is to use fewer, high quality ingredients. The best place to find some of those great Spanish ingredients is over at the La Tienda website. Stay fabulous!
Note: For the easiest way to hard boil and peel your eggs, check out “The Art of the Easy-Peel Hard Boiled Egg”.

spanish “russian” potato salad (ensaladilla rusa)
Equipment
- Medium Saucepan
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs
- 4 medium red potatoes peeled and diced into ½" cubes
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 2 roasted red peppers diced into ¼ inch pieces
- 2 4½ oz cans tuna in extra virgin olive oil drained
- 1 cup mayonnaise made with extra virgin olive oil
- kosher salt
Instructions
- Hard boil the eggs for 10-12 minutes. Once the eggs have cooled, peel and chop into ½ inch pieces.
- In a medium saucepan, cover the peeled and diced potatoes with one inch of water. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes. At this point, add the chopped carrots to the simmering water and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Once the vegetables are tender, drain through a colander.
- Pour ½ cup hot water over the frozen peas and allow to sit for 5 minutes. Drain water.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the chopped eggs, potatoes, carrots, diced red pepper, mayonnaise, and tuna. Season with 1 tsp kosher salt. Stir all ingredients together.
- Allow the potato salad to sit in the fridge for at least one hour before serving.
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