Mimosa Salad with Sardines
What goes into Mimosa salad with sardines?
For 2 servings: 1 can of sardines in oil with the liquid, 2 apples, 4 eggs, 2 potatoes, 2 carrots and ½ cup mayonnaise. Layers from the bottom up: apple, sardines, potatoes, carrots, egg whites, yolk; mayonnaise goes 1 tbsp each on the sardines and potatoes and generously on the whites. Assemble it at least 2–3 hours before serving so the salad can soak in the fridge.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Canned fish (sardines or saury in oil) 1 can
- Apples 2
- Eggs 4
- Potatoes 2
- Carrots 2
- Mayonnaise ½ cup (95 g)
- Green onion a few stalks
Step-by-step recipe
Boiling and grating
Let me say right away: I don’t use onion or butter. Onion doesn’t go well with the other ingredients and is too sharp for such a delicate salad, and all the tricks, boiling, scalding or pickling it, only spoil the result. Butter adds too many calories to the salad; you might as well butter some bread. As far as I’m concerned, mayonnaise is plenty.
Get all the ingredients ready. The salad is layered, so you could even call it a cake.
Boil the potatoes and carrots until fully cooked. Hard-boil the eggs and cool them right away under running water; that way they peel more easily.
Take the sardines out of the can along with the liquid and mash them with a fork until smooth.
Peel and core the apple. Coarsely grate the potatoes, carrots and apple. Put each on its own plate; that makes layering the salad easier.
Separate the egg whites from the yolks. Coarsely grate the whites, and mash the yolks with a fork until very fine, or grate them finely.
Layering the salad
You need a deep plate or a serving dish. You can also build Mimosa salad as a tower using a ring mold cut from a plastic bottle: just cut out a cylinder of the right height. Ideally, all the layers should be the same thickness. Press them down lightly. The order of the layers from the bottom up: apple, sardines, potatoes, carrots, egg whites, yolk; mayonnaise goes on the sardines, the potatoes and the whites.
Spread the grated apple over the bottom of the dish or mold. Level it so the apple covers the bottom completely.
Put the sardines on top of the apple. Spread the sardine layer with mayonnaise, just a little, 1 tbsp is enough.
Add the grated potatoes. Level them so the potato layer completely covers the layers below without forming a dome. Spread the potatoes with 1 tbsp mayonnaise (14 g).
Next, spread the grated carrots. This is the darkest layer, and it sets off the pale eggs, potatoes, apples and whites.
Then add the egg white layer. Spread it generously with mayonnaise, carefully, without missing any spots.
Sprinkle the mayonnaise generously with the finely grated egg yolk.
Serving
I wasn’t sure whether the salad needed a garnish. I thought for a long time: with what? I decided green looks nice on yellow.
Slice a few green onion stalks and sprinkle them over the Mimosa. Let the salad chill in the fridge for at least 2–3 hours, or better overnight. It’s served cold.
And finally: don’t add any more mayonnaise. The salad would slump and be too greasy. The juice from the sardine can gives it a unique juiciness, and since there’s nothing sharp in the dish (like onion), this delicate salad will melt in your mouth.
Calories and macros
845 kcal
Serving ≈ 610 g
- Protein39 g19% of kcal
- Fat52 g58% of kcal
- Carbs45 g23% of kcal
100 g139 kcalProtein 6.4 gFat 8.6 gCarbs 7.5 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
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To Get It Right
Which canned fish to use
For Mimosa, sardines or saury in oil, and the liquid from the can goes into the salad too. Fish canned in tomato sauce won’t work. Readers make Mimosa with other canned fish, and it’s just as tasty:
- pink salmon or salmon in its own juice, as in Mimosa salad with cheese and salmon;
- canned tuna, which makes the salad less rich;
- sprats, as in sprat salad.
A tart apple
Almost all the layers of Mimosa are neutral in flavor, so you need a tart apple: it livens up the salad and goes well with the fish. A sweet apple won’t do that.
If you can’t do without onion and butter
I don’t put them in Mimosa, but readers recommend a mild salad onion, spread in a thin layer over the sardines. Butter goes in frozen, grated finely over the onion, as in Mimosa salad with cheese and salmon. Green onion and dill on top give the salad a summery freshness.
A pretty presentation
In portions, use a ring cut from a plastic bottle or a pastry ring; for the table, a clear glass dish or a deep plate. Keep the layers the same thickness and press them down lightly; grate the yolk for the top only on a fine grater, so it lies fluffy, like a mimosa flower.
Making ahead and storing
Mimosa needs to chill well and soak up the flavors: assemble it at least 2–3 hours before serving, or better the evening before. Covered with plastic wrap, Mimosa keeps in the fridge for up to a day.
Have your own trick for this recipe?
Questions and answers
Why does Mimosa salad slump?
Most likely every layer was coated in mayonnaise. 1 tbsp on the sardines and 1 tbsp on the potatoes in the middle is enough; only the egg white under the yolk gets a generous coat. The other reason is that the salad wasn’t left in the fridge long enough for the layers to set.
Can you add cheese to Mimosa salad?
You can: readers add a layer of grated processed cheese before the egg white. With hard cheese and butter there’s a separate recipe: Mimosa salad with cheese and salmon.
Can you make Mimosa salad without potatoes?
Yes, then the salad is built from fish, eggs, cheese and butter, as in Mimosa salad with cheese and salmon. A lighter option is fluffy boiled rice instead of the potatoes or along with them; let the rice cool completely.
What can I use instead of mayonnaise in Mimosa salad?
Thick sour cream or Greek yogurt works, or mix either half and half with mayonnaise. The salad will be less rich, but also less juicy.
How long to boil the eggs and vegetables for Mimosa?
Eggs: hard-boiled, 10 minutes after the water boils, then straight into cold water. Boil the potatoes and carrots in their skins until fully cooked and cool them completely, otherwise warm vegetables will melt the mayonnaise.
What else can you make with canned sardines?
Besides Mimosa: layered sardine fish salad with pickled cucumber and capers, canned sardine soup, or sardine pizza.