Make Potato Salad Italian Deli-Worthy By Adding A Jar Of This Flavor-Packed Ingredient
At its best, potato salad is a balance of creamy, crunchy, starchy, and tangy, with just the right amount of each ingredient. However, achieving that balance can be tough, especially since so many potato salad recipes call for little more than the eponymous potatoes (be sure to choose the right kind for your salad), mayonnaise, and a crunchy element, such as diced celery or raw red onions. There's
A key ingredient in Louisiana's most iconic sandwich, muffuletta salad is a masterpiece of flavor and gorgeously chewy texture. Green and black olives serve as the main ingredients, followed closely by giardiniera, which typically includes bell peppers, carrots, celery, and cauliflower marinated in a vinegary brine. Muffuletta mixes can also include piquant pepperoncini peppers, briny capers, and seasonings such as diced garlic and oregano in an olive oil and vinegar solution.
The resulting salad is fresh, bright, salty, and deeply flavorful. Drained and mixed into pretty much any style of potato salad, it brings the rest of the ingredients to life by coating them in a delicious umami bomb. Mayo tastes tangier, fresh veggies seems crisper, and the potatoes soak up the salt and seasonings to become almost as flavorful as a salt and vinegar potato chip.
Muffaletta can uncover muffled flavor in potato salad
Though you can certainly make your own muffuletta salad, most grocery stores also sell jars in the same aisle with olives and pickles. This is advantageous because all the ingredients are already minced and seasoned, meaning all you have to do is stir it into your salad. There are several ways to do this depending on the results you're looking for. If you want lots of briny flavor inside your potato salad, spoon some of the brine from the jar over your potatoes while they're still warm. Alternatively, you can mix a little brine and a few tablespoons of the salad into your mayo for a slightly less intense result.
Whichever option you choose, it's crucial to drain the muffuletta salad before stirring it into your dish, adding any brine you wish to use separately. Controlling the amount of brine you add is vital to keeping your potato salad from becoming too wet and turning soupy. Fortunately, it's so flavorful that you don't need much of the brining liquid, or the salad itself, to infuse your spuds with plenty of delicious brightness. A tablespoon or so per serving of potato salad is plenty. If you make your own muffuletta salad, it's likely less moist than the jarred stuff since most recipes call for a little vinegar and oil as a dressing rather than a brine needed for preservation.
