The potato salad I would like to present to you today is a tasty cold dish made of potatoes and seasonal vegetables, very easy, very flavorful, gluten-free, and lactose-free. Prepare it well in advance to ensure that the cooked ingredients are well cooled before being added to the salad and seasoned. Potato salads, just like rice and pasta salads, are typical summer dishes, because when the heat becomes oppressive, one desires only fresh, light, and tasty foods; furthermore, they can be enriched and customized endlessly, using both creativity and what we already have at home. To make this delicious potato salad a unique dish, we can add legumes, hard-boiled eggs, tuna, or other ingredients we like. Let’s not forget that salads, whether they are potato, pasta, or rice, can be packed in small and practical lunchboxes to enjoy at work, on a picnic, or at the beach.
- Cost: Economic
- Rest time: 3 Hours
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Boiling
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Spring, Summer
Ingredients
- 2.2 lbs potatoes
- 1 bell pepper
- 2 zucchini
- to taste pitted green or black olives
- to taste chopped red onion
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- to taste fine salt
- to taste celery
- 1 tbsp apple cider or balsamic vinegar to taste
Steps
Boil the potatoes with the skin in plenty of slightly salted water, according to our habits, until they are cooked. Drain them immediately, transfer them to a pot with cold water and let them cool completely.
In the meantime, wash the bell pepper and zucchini, removing all inedible waste parts.
Cut the bell pepper into wide strips, about 1 inch, and the zucchini into chunks.
Bring water to a boil in a pot. When the water boils, add a pinch of coarse salt and the bell pepper strips, cover and bring back to a boil; at that point, add the zucchini and let them cook for just two minutes, then turn off and drain the vegetables immediately to prevent them from getting mushy.
If you wish, you can quickly pass them under a cold water jet. Let them cool in a colander.
When all the vegetables are cold, transfer them to a salad bowl: the potatoes cut into pieces roughly the size of a walnut, the zucchini chunks, the bell pepper strips also cut into chunks, the pitted olives, the onion, a thin celery stalk with some finely chopped leaves. Finally, season with fine salt, vinegar (you can also add some pickles), and extra virgin olive oil. Mix everything gently and put it in the fridge with a lid for an hour before serving this delicious and fragrant vegetarian potato salad.
