Kipfler potato, lentil and feta salad

Potato salad comes in all shapes and sizes. Back in the day I made a classic potato salad: steamed potatoes, and gently fried sliced mushrooms, red onion and garlic. If you were luck you’d get some crunchy bacon bits thrown in too. The dressing was mayonnaise with a dash of french mustard, to make it a little more interesting, and it was delicious. But then people started complaining it was too creamy.

Enter potato salad mark II – still the same core ingredients but the dressing changed. Mayonnaise was no longer the core ingredient. It now shared the space with sour cream or yoghurt…whatever was in the fridge. It worked. It was delicious too. But as children aged the fondness for creamy potato salad started to disappear.

And so we came to potato salad mark III. Gone is anything resembling mayonnaise. In its place, a balsamic olive oil dressing with a little salt and pepper. This major change triggered the realisation that potato salad could have other things beside mushrooms in it. Things that would have previously clashed with the mayonnaise dressing.

The beauty of the potato salad evolution is this salad now stands on its own. It’s no longer a side dish. The addition of lentils, roasted capsicum, feta and spinach has turned it into a great lunch that doesn’t need anything to accompany it (although it works well with sausages or salmon, if you’re wanting something more robust for dinner).

I use a tin of lentils because it’s easy, but roast the capsicum myself as this is done at the same time as roasting the potatoes. Use a jar of roasted capsicum strips if it’s easier. I use kipfler potatoes because they roast so well, becoming a little bit crunchy on the cut side, with no added effort on my part. You can use whatever potato is your favourite but cut them into the size you want before cooking so they have a crunchy side. I also scrub the potatoes rather than peel them, which gives them just a little bit more bite. Enjoy!