Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Daring Cook's June Challenge: Healthy Potato Salads

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

There are a million recipes for healthy potato salads, my favorite one is actually the Russian "Selyodka pod Shuboy" or "Herring under Fur Coat."It is a delicious and nutritious salad with many vegetables and a beautiful presentation when you slice through and see all the different colors. It reminds me or a rainbow really!

As always, I made a few changes to the original recipe. I made it healthier and just as tasty.

The ingredients are as follows:
2 large potatoes
4 eggs
4 medium carrots peeled
1 can sliced beets/ or 2 beets
5 large slices of smoked salmon (the original recipe uses herring, but it can sometimes be hard to find and it is very oily)
1/2 cup light mayonnaise
2 TBS nonfat yogurt
Salt and Pepper as needed


1. Boil the potatoes and carrots together. You can choose to leave the skin on the potatoes or not, i find it helps them hold together during cooking. When soft, drain and allow to cool.

2. Boil the eggs

3. If you are using raw beets, roast them or boil them until soft. If using canned, skip this part.

4. When vegetables are cooked, shred them with a grater.


5. When the potatoes, beets and carrots are shredded, set them aside.

6. With the back of a fork, crush the egg with the mayonnaise and the yogurt. If you have an egg slicer, slice the egg into strips by cutting once and then cutting parallel. Even though the mayo is light, add a little yogurt to make it creamier without the added fat and calories. It tastes just as good. Season with salt and pepper.

7. When you have all of your components ready, arrange them into separate bowls to make it easier to assemble your layered salad.


8. You can assemble the salad in clear glasses like I did, or place them in a deep dish that you can then unmould and slice. It will look beautiful when you arrange all the layers carefully.


9. Arrange a layer of salmon to cover the bottom of the dish, then top with potatoes, egg mixture, carrots, potatoes, egg mixture, beets, egg mixture.  The order doesn't really matter and if you want to double up on some layers of your favorite vegetable, do so. They key is to make it as colorful as possible so that it looks like an edible rainbow!  In the original version of this recipe there is a layer of mayonnaise between each vegetable layer (to hold it all together when you unmould). I decided to mix the mayonnaise with the egg so that we have more flavor in a smaller bite. It's really super flexible and did I mention it takes only 20 minutes to make?

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