Picnic No mayonnaise Cold

Turkish potato salad

Name: Turkish potato salad
Prep time: 35 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients: 800 g Potatoes, waxy if possible; 2000 ml Water for boiling; 8 g Salt; 60 ml Olive oil; 1 pcs Lemon; 0.5 tsp Cumin; 1 tsp Chilli flakes; 60 g Spring onions; 25 g Parsley; 20 g Dill

No mayonnaise, just olive oil and lemon. The potatoes are dressed while hot (about 60 °C): warm potato draws the dressing in and cold potato does not.

Meze · Turkish · Budget · Vegan · School lunchbox · For guests · Weekend batch

60 minTime

290Kcal / serving

1158Total kcal

Preparation: 15 min
Cooking: 25 min
Resting: 20 min
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Very cheap
Season: All year

Where this dish comes from

Turkish potato salad is a different plate from the mayonnaise salads of Europe: olive oil, lemon, spring onion, parsley, dill and chilli flakes. It is the one in the picnic basket, at afternoon tea and on the holiday table. It is eaten cold, but its taste is decided while the potatoes are still hot.

Method

Before the heat goes on

Wash the potatoes and leave them whole, in their skins, and of a similar size.
Make the dressing first, so it can go on the moment the potatoes are drained.

You will need: A pan · A knife · A wide bowl

Put the potatoes in their skins into cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 20 to 25 minutes, until a knife slides into the middle without resistance.

Look for The knife tip should slide to the centre; the skins should not be splitting.

Why Starting from cold, the outside and inside heat at the same pace. Dropped into boiling water, a potato falls apart outside while the middle stays raw. The skin limits how much water it takes up and keeps it from going soggy.

Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back

Too much starch. It will set into a rubbery gel once cool — add more liquid.
Drain them, and once they are cool enough to handle (about 60 °C) peel them and cut them into 2 cm cubes.

Look for The potatoes should still be steaming.

Why At this temperature the skin comes away easily and the starch inside the potato is still open, which is exactly the moment the next step needs.
At once, toss the warm potatoes with the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, cumin and chilli flakes; leave them to cool for 20 minutes.

Look for After 20 minutes no dressing should be left in the bottom of the bowl, and the potatoes should be yellowish and glossy.

Why As warm potato cools its gelatinised starch contracts and pulls the dressing in; potato that has already cooled holds dressing only on its surface and the inside stays bland. That is also why the salt goes in now.

If it went wrong

If the potatoes were dressed cold, warm them for a minute in the microwave, toss again and let them stand for 10 minutes.

Salt · 0.88% Right in the window. Flavours sharpen, bitterness retreats, water is held.
Once they are at room temperature, add the spring onion, parsley and dill and fold them in gently.

Look for The herbs should stay bright green and the potato cubes should not break up.

Why Herbs added to hot potato cook and darken; added once it has cooled, they keep their colour and scent.

Salt · 0.79% Right in the window. Flavours sharpen, bitterness retreats, water is held.

What the model could follow

This recipe was run through the engine step by step — what goes in when, and at what temperature and for how long. The reactions above come from that run.

peak 98 °C · 52 minutes · engine 1.0.0 · confidence low

Servings

4

Ingredients

800 g Potatoes, waxy if possible
2000 ml Water for boiling
8 g Salt
60 ml Olive oil
1 pcs Lemon
0.5 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Chilli flakes
60 g Spring onions
25 g Parsley
20 g Dill

What did you think

Who is eating

Everyone A baby under one Pregnant A child An athlete Someone living with diabetes

The 1 rules we hold for this group did not fire for this dish. That does not mean the dish is suitable for them; it means those particular rules did not apply.

Not about the dish — about the person

Salt in a day

5 g 2000 mg

An adult Context established

Under 5 g of salt a day, which is under 2000 mg of sodium — just under a teaspoon. A label usually gives sodium, and the two are not the same number: salt is about 2.5 times the sodium.

World Health Organization, Salt reduction

Free sugars

10%

Strong recommendation — adults and children Context established

The same share for adults and for children. Ten per cent of a 2000-calorie day is roughly 50 g of sugar, and a single can of a fizzy drink is more than half of it. The risk of weight gain, obesity and tooth decay rises above this line.

World Health Organization, Information note about intake of sugars recommended in the WHO guideline for adults and children, 2015

What is done, and what is not: With somebody pregnant at the table, unpasteurised milk and cheeses come out of every suggestion, the salt threshold is held at the adult figure and the free-sugar one is applied strictly — all three sourced, all three in "Sources and method". That much happens on its own and you do not have to remember it. On caffeine, fish and mercury, iron and folate this site has no source; do not read them here, ask the doctor following the pregnancy. The difference between those two sentences is the point: the first is done, the second is not.

This choice is not stored anywhere.

Diets

Gluten-free Suitable as it is
Vegan Suitable as it is
Vegetarian Suitable as it is
Lactose-free Suitable as it is
Diabetes-friendly It depends Quickly digested starch. Cooling it builds resistant starch, and fat, protein, fibre or acid alongside it flattens the curve.

This verdict comes from the recipe\u2019s own ingredient list. The label on a packaged ingredient is always the last word.

Calculated nutrition

289.6 kcal
4.9 g Protein
38.2 g Carbohydrate
14.2 g Fat
5.6 g Fibre

Per serving, computed from raw weights as bought. Cooking drives water off and sometimes adds fat, and neither is accounted for.

Vitamins and minerals · per serving

Vitamins

Vitamin A 64.3 µg · 8%
Vitamin D 0 µg · 0%
Vitamin E 2.3 mg · 19%
Vitamin K 146 µg · 195%
Vitamin C 60.5 mg · 76%
B1 (thiamin) 0.19 mg · 17%
B2 (riboflavin) 0.10 mg · 7%
B3 (niacin) 2.4 mg · 15%
B5 (pantothenic acid) 0.67 mg · 11%
Vitamin B6 0.64 mg · 46%
Folate 58.3 µg · 29%
Vitamin B12 0 µg · 0%

Minerals

Potassium 998 mg · 50%
Calcium 75.7 mg · 9%
Phosphorus 131 mg · 19%
Magnesium 62.6 mg · 17%
Iron 3.0 mg · 21%
Zinc 0.81 mg · 8%
Copper 0.30 mg · 30%
Manganese 0.43 mg · 21%
Selenium 1.0 µg · 2%
Sodium 812 mg · 34%

% of daily need for:

Percentages are shares of the reference values printed on food labels (Turkish Food Codex labelling regulation, Annex 13 (identical to EU Regulation 1169/2011, Annex XIII)), not a personal requirement. For sodium the reference is a ceiling. Computed from raw ingredients; cooking lowers some vitamins. "~": not measured in some of the ingredients.

USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy · ANSES Ciqual 2025 · CoFID 2021 · Swiss FCDB 7.1

composition figures unsourced · held in the system

Nutri-Score

B Per 100 g of the raw mixture, computed with the published Nutri-Score algorithm (2023 update). Confidence: low.

Nutri-Score compares a food with others of its kind; it is not a health claim or personal dietary advice on its own. Cooking drives off water, so the cooked dish may score differently.

How it was calculated

Category: general food · Negative points 1 − positive points 0 = 1

Energy 161 kJ → 0
Saturated fat 0.26 g → 0
Sugars 0.31 g → 0
Salt 0.27 g → 1
Protein 0.66 g → 0
Fibre 0.71 g → 0
Fruit, vegetables, legumes %5.1 → 0

Salt = sodium × 2.5. Only ingredients plainly in the fruit-vegetable-legume group are counted towards that share; doubtful ones are left out, which can only make the letter worse. Values from USDA FoodData Central and Ciqual; 66% of the weight is a close rather than exact match.

After the heat goes off

Serving

At room temperature or cold, beside köfte or fish, or on its own at tea time.

Keeping · 2 days

Two days in a closed box in the fridge; the herbs fade with time.

Cooling and reheating

It is not heated; take it out of the fridge 20 minutes ahead.

Does not freeze

It does not freeze: boiled potato turns spongy on thawing.

What is left

Fried in a pan with two eggs for breakfast, or rolled into a wrap.

For a child

Children usually like it; leave the chilli flakes and spring onion out of their share. Good for a lunchbox: eaten cold and it holds together. Take a baby’s share before the salt goes in.

If you have not got it

Lemon → Vinegar Two tablespoons of vinegar instead of the lemon; sharper, and the warm potato draws it in just the same.

Where to go from here

Boiling & poaching The method this recipe rests on
Potato What it does in heat, water and acid
Spring onion What it does in heat, water and acid
Olive oil What it does in heat, water and acid
Oven potato wedges Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Crushed potatoes with yoghurt Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Shepherd’s salad Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Budget Other recipes that answer the same need
Vegan Other recipes that answer the same need
School lunchbox Other recipes that answer the same need
For guests Other recipes that answer the same need
Weekend batch Other recipes that answer the same need

Taste profile

What it tastes like

No axis sits clearly above the average: a balanced recipe.

Sweet 10
Salty 9
Sour 11
Bitter 15
Umami 10
Heat 11
Richness 18
Aroma 34

This profile is computed rather than measured: the role-weighted average of its ingredients’ taste vectors, shifted by what the cooking does. The thin line is the database average on that axis.

Computed similarity