Ensaladilla Rusa
Spanish potato salad with tuna, peas, and olives.
Ingredients
- 600 g Potatoes
- 2 Carrot
- 150 g Frozen peas
- 2 tin Tinned tuna
- 2 Egg
- 60 g Manzanilla olives
- 5 tbsp Kewpie mayonnaise
- 1 tsp Salt
Method
- Boil the potatoes, carrots, and peas until tender and hard-boil the eggs, then cool.
- Dice the cooled potato, carrot, and egg.
- Fold everything together with the tuna, olives, and mayo.
- Chill and serve cold with bread.
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About Ensaladilla Rusa
Ensaladilla rusa is Spain's beloved version of the Russian potato salad known across Europe as Olivier, and it is one of the most popular tapas in the country. Boiled potato forms the creamy base, joined by carrot, sweet peas, and hard-boiled egg, all bound in mayonnaise and enriched with tinned tuna and briny olives. Everything is cooked soft and diced small, so the texture is uniformly tender and the mayo binds it into a cohesive, spoonable whole. The flavor is mild, savory, and comforting, with the tuna and olives adding welcome pops of salt.
The version here reaches for Kewpie mayonnaise, whose extra richness and gentle umami give the salad a rounder, glossier body than a standard mayo would. Because it is served cold and improves after chilling, ensaladilla rusa is ideal make-ahead food: assemble it, let it rest in the fridge, and the flavors settle together. In Spain it is scooped onto plates in bars and served with bread or crisp breadsticks, a permanent fixture of the tapas spread. Feeding six and coming together in about thirty minutes, it is a generous, crowd-pleasing dish for gatherings and warm-weather tables.
Ensaladilla Rusa: frequently asked questions
How many calories are in Ensaladilla Rusa?
A serving has about 287 calories — 15.6g protein, 23.5g carbs, 14.6g fat, 4.2g fiber. Figures are estimated from the ingredient amounts and will shift with your portions and brands.
Is Ensaladilla Rusa gluten-free?
Based on its ingredients, Ensaladilla Rusa has no gluten-containing components, so it's naturally gluten-free — as always, check that any packaged ingredients you use are certified gluten-free to be safe.
How long does Ensaladilla Rusa take to make?
About 30 minutes start to finish, but only around 11 of those are hands-on — the rest is largely unattended cooking time you can step away from. In the Homecooked app the timers and parallel steps are sequenced for you so the hands-on part feels even shorter.
How many servings does Ensaladilla Rusa make?
This recipe makes 6 servings. In the app you can scale it up or down and the ingredient amounts adjust automatically.