Turkish Potato Salad with herbs and hard-boiled eggs is very light, healthy and refreshing yet so tasty with all the Mediterranean flavors. A little spicy and tangy, this salad is so different from traditional mayonnaise-based potato salads. Perfect for potlucks!
Turkish Potato Salad is mostly considered as a light dinner especially in summer. You can definitely have it as a side dish during holidays, but in my country we have this salad on its own in spring or summer. You know the times when you don’t feel like eating comforting foods when it’s so hot outside. It’s super filling thanks to hard-boiled eggs and black and green olives.
Turkish potato salad is quite different from the mayonnaise-based potato salad recipes. This one is much healthier as the only oil in it is olive oil. The herbs like fresh parsley, mint and dill make it perfectly refreshing and suitable for the coming spring.
We don’t have olives in traditional Turkish potato salad recipes but I want to give it a more Mediterranean taste. I think black and green olives give it a gorgeous flavor, so don’t leave them out.
Sumac, which is a wonderful Middle East spice, gives it a great tangy and slightly earthy flavor. I love it so much that I use it quite often in salads. Have you ever had boiled potatoes as a snack or a breakfast food? Just sprinkle a little salt and sumac on a boiled potato and enjoy!
We didn’t have enough time to prepare a dish for dinner this evening. We were so hungry that we needed something quick, but of course it wouldn’t be a kind of prepackaged food. Any guess what we do in Turkey whenever we feel too tired to cook something suitable for dinner?
In Turkish culture, a perfect dinner should include a kind of soup as a starter and as a main dish like meat, chicken or vegetable stew. These should be accompanied by a kind of salad or yogurt. No need to mention desserts for a wonderful ending. However, we don’t always have time for all these courses as we are working. Fortunately, our culture has a great solution for people in need of quick dishes. That is breakfast for dinner.
The word “breakfast” is beyond the morning meal in Turkish language. It doesn’t mean only the meal eaten in the morning. If you have tea, cheese, olives, sliced tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers on your table, it is called breakfast in Turkey no matter what time of the day you eat them. These are indispensable foods of a typical Turkish breakfast. And it’s up to you to enrich your breakfast with some pastries or different versions of eggs or other food creations.
So this evening, we decided to have a breakfast style dinner. The most common food of this untimely breakfast is potato salad, especially when it gets warmer outside. We just boiled potatoes and eggs, chopped herbs and made this super tasty Turkish potato salad. We felt really close to spring with this light and sensational salad.
Adding eggs into Turkish potato salad is up to you. Personally, I do love eggs in any version, so I can’t think of a potato salad without them. How you add eggs into this salad depends on your taste as well. Some people love eggs sliced as a garnish on the top while others love them combined well with the salad.
This post was originally published in April 2009 and is updated with new pictures in February 2017.
Potato Salad
Super easy, light, tangy and sensational potato salad with Mediterranean flavors.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 4
- Category: Side Dish
- Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients
- 4 potatoes
- 1 red onion, diced
- 1 teaspoon sumac
- 3 green onions, chopped
- 1 green pepper, chopped
- 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
- 1 tablespoon fresh mint, chopped
- 2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon black olives
- 1 tablespoon green olives
- 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
- 4 eggs, hard-boiled
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Boil the potatoes until tender. Peel and chop them roughly into a large bowl.
- Add in all the other ingredients except eggs.
- Slice the eggs as you like and either stir the salad and top it with egg slices or add in egg slices and stir them all.
- Keep any leftovers covered in the refrigerator.
Notes
You can chop the whites in smaller pieces and then stir them in the salad.
You can add extra lemon juice and/or olive oil in the salad for your taste.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 small bowl
this looks amazing. I have never cooked with sumac, what is is like? I digg’d it and stumbled this. Yumm!
Thank you Vanessa. Sumac is a kind of Asian spice which gives a savory taste to foods. For more information you can visit here: http://oysterculture.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/special-ingredients-sumac/
Yum! Potato salad. Always great in the summer at picnics and gatherings. That looks delish!!
Your pictures are so pretty! What kind of camera do you use and what lense? I think I need to get myself a nice camera, because I’d love to take some beautiful pictures, for instance, when I travel! I’ve never seen such crystal clear, vibrant pictures since I started reading all kinds of food and travel blogs. Zerrin, your English writing is amazing (and I’m assuming you speak it beautifully just as well) – did you learn English while going to school in Turkey? Did you go to a university in Turkey?
P.S. I’ve never heard of sumac either. I did a quick search of it and it sounds interesting. The only sumac I know of here in the U.S. is poison sumac (http://www.apinchof.com/sumac1114.htm) – makes your skin break out in a rash and you itch like crazy!
Thank you for teaching me new things.
Oh my gosh, Zerrin, you’ve outdone yourself. This potato dish looks amazing. I am making some to serve with some leftover lamb, and now I want to start over and make what I see here.
I cannot wait to use the expression “The Egg Pushing the Door” in conversation. I love it, and the drawing to accompany it is wonderful!
MMMMMM…Zerrin, this potato salad looks cute & so delicious!!
You & the love for eggs,….!!
Wow, what a gorgeous potato salad! I love the sumac and pepper flakes here – how delicious!
I love eating breakfast for dinner! Here in the U.S. that usually means eggs, pancakes or french toast. This potato salad looks delicious, I would be quite happy with it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!
Jenn- Oh I forgot to say that this salad is an indispensable food for our picnics too. thank you for reminding.
Leesie- Thank you so much for your so kind words. My camera is Fuji Finepix S5600, I bought it last year as a start to take the photos of landscapes. I’m really interested in photography and try to learn it in detail. Since I started this blog, I’ve been using my camera for food photography as you see. And of course I still have a lot of things to learn.
You really made me feel so happy by complimenting my English. Well, I studied English literature at university and I’m now
teaching English at university.
OysterCulture- I’m sure your potato salad will be perfect with lamb. And I’d love to be there and see the reactions when you use that expression in a conversation. 🙂
Sophie- You know me 🙂 I’m just crazy about eggs.
Natasha- Sumac is a wonderful spice for boiled potatoes.
Reeni- Glad you love it. Maybe, we can start a new movement called “breakfast for dinner”. lol
I enjoyed your explanation of the concept of ‘breakfast’ in Turkey and how it refers more to the food rather than to the time of day. I would gladly have this ‘breakfast’ any time!
Humm, simple enough and looks tasty, adopted! 🙂
Your breakfast for dinner looks great! The olive oil and red pepper flakes on the salad and eggs looks so delicious.
I love that I learn so much about Turkish culture from your blog! So interesting about what makes a “breakfast.” I wouldn’t consider most of those foods to be typical breakfast food at all!
This potato salad looks nice- I’m always on the lookout for ones that don’t include mayo.
Zerrincim, super bir patates salatasi bu. Gercekten de kahvalti, gunun her saatinde cok guzel oluyor. Ozellikle vaktimiz olmadigi zamanlarda. Ellerine saglik.
Well, potato salad always gets my vote and now that I have managed to find some sumac, I will have to try it with spuds 🙂 I also love the idea that breakfast is not tied to the morning time – I could certainly eat this kind of breakfast at any time of day!
That potato salad looks good!
No potato salad is complete without hard boiled eggs! I like how you added red pepper flakes to this – I’ve never added them to my potato salad for no other reason than I never thought to. Looks delicious!
This dish is our best for Sunday breakfast.. i love it..