The octopus salad with potatoes and Taggiasca olives is a savory cold seafood salad that can be served as an appetizer, a side dish, a second course or even as a main fish course, just like the potato salad with tuna. As delicious as the Lemon-Marinated Octopus Carpaccio or the octopus salad with potatoes and avocado, the octopus and potato salad with olives can be made ahead of time, even the day before, and will still be delicious because after a few hours the octopus in the salad becomes even more flavorful and tempting. If you also love octopus like I do but prefer a warm version, try the Salentine-style octopus and potatoes. Now let’s go to the kitchen and prepare our tasty seafood salad; I’m sure you’ll love it. If you want, you can also make it with frozen octopus or thawed octopus. So if you’re looking for ideas to cook frozen or fresh octopus, let’s make the octopus, potato and olive salad together. Before we start, remember that if you want to stay updated on my recipes you can follow my Facebook page (here) and my Instagram profile (here). Also check out this special dedicated to the most tempting potato salads: “Potato salads: lots of tasty recipes“.
Check out these other recipes for cooking octopus:
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Medium
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 5
- Cooking methods: Boiling
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients to make octopus and potato salad
- 1.8 lb potatoes (preferably new potatoes)
- 1.8 lb octopus (fresh or thawed)
- to taste salt
- to taste parsley
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- 2 oz Taggiasca olives
- 2 lemons (juice and zest)
Tools
- Pots
Steps to make octopus, potatoes and olive salad
For this salad you can use fresh octopus or frozen octopus. In the latter case, let it thaw slowly in the fridge before cooking.
If using fresh octopus, remove the entrails and the beak, or ask your fishmonger to do it; then rinse under running water. If using frozen octopus it may already be cleaned and you can skip this step.
To cook the octopus you can choose one of these two equally valid methods:
– Fill a pot with cold water, immerse the octopus, add half a lemon (cut in half), and from the moment it boils count 45 minutes for about 2.2 lb of mollusk.
– If you want the tentacles to curl, as soon as the water reaches a boil immerse the octopus and lift it out three times. Continue cooking as indicated above.
After the time (in this case less than 45 minutes because I cooked small octopuses), pierce with a fork to check the tenderness of the meat, remove the octopus from the water and let it cool, then cut it into chunks.
Put the potatoes in a pot, cover with water, add salt and cook for 35-40 minutes from boiling or until they are soft when pierced with a skewer.
Drain them and let them cool gently at room temperature and then in the fridge before peeling. Or do as I do: place them in a bowl after washing, pour in 1/2 cup of water and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Cook in the microwave at 750W for 20 minutes, then remove and let cool.
Peel the cold potatoes and cut them into chunks, gather the octopus and potatoes on a serving plate, add olive oil, salt, parsley, lemon juice and zest, and coarsely chopped Taggiasca olives.
Mix everything together and the salad is ready — serve it at room temperature or chilled, in any case it will be delicious!
Consume the octopus and potato salad within 24 hours and store it in the fridge in an airtight container.
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If you want to add a bit more flavor to your salad, add some mayonnaise.
