Romanian Winter Salad

This Romanian winter salad is our family’s go-to when we want to serve something simple but fulfilling, using the pickles my parents always make – pickled cucumbers and pickled Romanian peppers.

It’s a classic Romanian dish, always served during winter. Since after the Christmas holidays we’re looking to eat a bit less meat, this salad goes perfectly as a main course for lunch or dinner. It’s also an interesting choice as a side dish, but it’s great on its own, so please do try it like that. ?

The main ingredients of this Romanian winter salad are boiled potatoes, boiled eggs, olives, red onion, and lots of pickled cucumbers and Romanian peppers. Have you ever tried pickled peppers before? We make them every year, and they go great in salads along boiled vegetables like potatoes or carrots.

Make this salad one hour at least before serving it, and keep it in the fridge to let all the flavors nicely combine. Use a simple dressing, made with vinegar, oil, salt and pepper, and you’re done. If you want your salad to be extra, you can add a bit of mustard to the dressing, or even serve it with a bit of mayonnaise.

Ingredients

4 medium potatoes

2 pickled peppers

4 pickled cucumbers

100 g olives

4 eggs

1 red onion

2 tablespoons oil

1 tablespoon vinegar

Salt and pepper

1. Boil the potatoes until they’re soft enough to stick a fork in them. Let them cool a bit and remove the peel while they’re still warm.
2. Boil the eggs for about 10 minutes – they have to be hard-boiled. When they’re done, remove the shell and cut them into quarters or slices.
3. Cut the potatoes into cubes, then slice the cucumbers and cut the pickled peppers into strips.
4. Thinly slice the onion (julienne).
5. In a large bowl, add the potatoes, the pickles, the olives, the onion, eggs and carefully mix, making sure you don’t crush the potatoes.
6. Mix the oil with the vinegar, salt and pepper, and add it over the salad. Mix to combine.