This zingy sardine salad with celery, cos lettuce, capers and mustard dressing makes a quick and easy salad that’s mostly assembled with pantry staples – a can of sardines, jars of capers, cocktail gherkins, wholegrain mustard, extra virgin olive oil, and white wine vinegar. If you have those in the kitchen cupboard, you only need to buy celery, lettuce, and fresh dill.
If you’re a fan of canned fish, as I am, you’ll love my sardine salad recipe for a quintessentially Russian-Ukrainian style salad of the kind my baboushka or mum might have made for one of our languorous Sunday family lunches that typically evolved into dinner. The salad contains ingredients that have long been pantry staples in our kitchen, essential ingredients in many of my Russian family recipes.
I began making this salad soon after returning to Australia to see my mum and discovering these fantastic canned sardines at the supermarket. I now keep a stack of tinned sardines and eat them a few times a week – partly because they’re so delicious and partly because sardines are just so good for us.
My sardine salad was one of those clean-out-the-fridge/pantry concoctions – leftover celery from ragu alla Bolognese, baby cos left from a salad, quick-pickled shallots I needed to use up, and sour cream from the batch of pelmeni and vareniki I made virtually as soon as I arrived. Then I reached into mum’s fridge and pulled out all the opened jars.
I usually make the salad exactly as pictured – because first we eat with our eyes, right? – and then I lightly toast some Turkish bread and we pile the salad on the warm buttered bread, firstly slathering on the dill-flecked sour cream that it sits on. It makes a wonderful lunch, but it would also be fantastic on the table as part of a weekend feast.
If you are a fan of canned sardines or any canned fish, do try our recipes for a Spanish tomato and sardine salad, this sardine pasta with capers and gremolata, a tuna pasta with scallions and capers and fresh herbs, my Russian mimosa salad, this fancy sardines on toast recipe and Terence’s ultimate tuna melt.
Now before I tell you about this sardine salad with celery, cos lettuce, capers, and mustard dressing, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo. There are lots of ways to support the site, but you could buy a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; or book a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith; or buy something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers or classic cookbooks for serious cooks.
Looking for more cooking inspiration? We’ve got hundreds of recipes in our archives from around the world from places we’ve lived, worked, travelled, and loved. And don’t forget you can save your favourite recipes in a private account by clicking on the heart on the right of the post. Now let me tell you all about this recipe for a sardine salad with celery, cos lettuce, capers, and mustard dressing.
Sardine Salad with Celery, Cos, Capers and Mustard Dressing Recipe
Although it isn’t, in many ways my zingy sardine salad is a quintessentially Russian-Ukrainian salad. It could have been a salad my baboushka or mum might have made for one of our languorous Sunday family lunches that typically turned into dinner.
The salad contains ingredients that have long been pantry staples in our kitchen, and were staples in the pantries of my parents and my Russian-Ukrainian grandparents: canned fish, gherkins, capers, grainy mustard, olive oil, and vinegar – essential ingredients in many of my Russian family recipes.
Fresh dill is another indispensable ingredient for me. I use it in and on everything. We grow dill on our Siem Reap balcony and I remember my Russian grandfather growing small forests of dill in his backyard vegetable garden in Blacktown in Sydney’s western suburbs.
I remember papa’s dill towering above me as a child. Papa would always let the dill go to seed as he and baba used the dill seeds when pickling cucumbers to make gherkins and in the pickled herrings they bottled. If you’re also a fan of pickled herring, I have a pickled herring and potato salad that I’m going to share.
Tips to Making this Sardine Salad with Celery, Cos, Capers and Mustard Dressing Recipe
Just a few tips to making this sardine salad, as it’s so easy and comes together quickly. The first thing to do is to make a quick-pickle of purple shallots – or red onion if you can’t source shallots.
In the recipe I’ve only specified the amounts you need for this salad, but you could make a jar of pickled shallots if you use them regularly. If you’re going to refrigerate them, make sure to use a sterilised air-tight jar such as a mason jar or clip-top Kilner jar.
To make the quick-pickle of purple shallots, you’re just going to stir together a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and tablespoon of white wine vinegar in a small dish, add the slices of shallot (red onion), give them a stir, and make sure they’re coated in the oil and vinegar.
Next you’ll make the dill sour cream, which is super simple: you’ll just stir the fresh dill sprigs into the sour cream. Then spoon the dill sour cream onto a serving plate and use the back of the spoon to spread it around the plate, as it’s going to serve as a base for your sardine salad.
Make the salad dressing next. Use the best quality extra virgin olive oil you can find and afford. I make the dressing right in the salad bowl, but you could always make a bigger batch in a lidded jar and refrigerate what you don’t use.
After making the dressing, I add the drained capers, tiny cocktail gherkin halves, celery slices, baby cos lettuce leaves, and half the sardines. Take care combining that lot so that the sardines don’t break up. That’s partly why I only add half the sardines so I can keep some intact to pop on top of the salad.
I then use tongs to pluck out the baby cos lettuce leaves and arrange them on the dill sour cream and use a big salad spoon to scoop up the sardine salad and drop that onto the salad leaves. I then arrange the rest of the whole sardines on top, drizzle on the rest of the dressing, and sprinkle on more dill sprigs.
Make sure to serve your sardine salad straight away so the lettuce leaves doesn’t go soggy. It’s wonderful piled on warmed Turkish bread, toasted sourdough or even homemade croutons. I serve the salad with any leftover dressing and fresh dill on the table, because you can never have enough dill.
Sardine Salad with Celery, Cos, Capers and Mustard Dressing Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 purple shallot - sliced, or half a red onion,
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil - divided
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- 4 tbsp sour cream
- 4 tbsp fresh dill sprigs - divided
- 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ½ tsp garlic salt
- ½ tsp ground cracked black pepper
- 3 tsp capers
- 6 cocktail gherkins - cut in half
- 1 celery stick - sliced in half lengthways, then cut into slices
- 8 baby cos lettuce leaves
- 110 g tin sardines in oil - drained
Instructions
- In a small dish, stir together 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar, add the slices of shallot or red onion, and cover with the dressing and set aside.
- To a small bowl, add the sour cream and 2 tablespoons of fresh dill sprigs and stir together so they’re well combined. Spoon the dill sour cream onto a serving plate and spread it around with the back of the spoon to serve as a base for the sardine salad.
- To a big salad bowl, add 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of wholegrain mustard, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, ½ tsp garlic salt, ½ tsp ground cracked black pepper, 1 tablespoon of fresh dill sprigs, and 3 teaspoons of capers, and stir vigorously together to combine well.
- To the same bowl, add the capers, cocktail gherkins halves, celery slices, baby cos lettuce leaves, and half the sardines. Stir carefully to combine everything so the sardines don’t break up.
- Pluck out the cos lettuce leaves and spread them out on the dill sour cream on the serving plate, then scoop up the sardine salad and spread that over the salad leaves. Arrange the rest of the whole sardines on top of the salad, drizzle the remaining dressing on top, and sprinkle on the last of the dill sprigs.
- Serve immediately with warm sourdough toast and any leftover dressing and fresh herbs.
Nutrition
Please do let us know in the comments section below if you make this sardine salad with celery, cos lettuce, capers and mustard dressing, as we love to hear how our recipes turn out for our readers.
