In the early 2000s, I lived in St. Petersburg, Russia, for close to a year. I’d been traveling through Europe and northern Africa for much of the year before that and was drawn to the local flavors in each country and region I visited. Russia presented an interesting dichotomy: a love of all things pickled yet little tolerance for anything spicy or powerfully flavored.

The salad and dressing recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon shows how this dichotomy can be a complementary pairing, which is perhaps one reason both tangy and mild flavors were so popular in Russia. In contrast, the blend that many Westerners know as Russian dressing, which often contains chili sauce, horseradish, and other hot or sharp flavors, would have been too much for my Russian friends. They even found my homemade mac and cheese, with its dash of mustard powder, too spicy. But the tangy combination of pickled vegetables and sour cream in this potato salad was just fine.

Learn more about preparing potato salads and get the complete recipe for Potato Salad with Pickles and Creamy Dressing in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

Potatoes create such a filling, neutral base that you can dress the salad with all sorts of flavors—all with ingredients likely already in your kitchen. Salad dressings are incredibly simple and quick to make at home, not to mention that they lack the preservatives and ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup in many store-bought bottles, cost less, and don’t take up valuable fridge space because you can make them in small batches. Here are just three of my favorite combinations that pair well with potato salad. You can find more in the recipe index.

• Creamy Balsamic Salad Dressing
• French Salad Dressing
• Vegan Green Goddess Dressing

You can also learn more about DIY salad dressings in this blog post.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.