The moment I saw this recipe, I had a feeling it was going to be something special. It’s such a refreshing departure from the usual mayonnaise-laden potato salad — bright, herby, and a little bit smoky from the toasted coriander seeds. I love potatoes in every form, but this one comes with a brilliant bonus: serving them cold isn’t just a style choice, it’s actually the smarter way to eat them.
Here’s why. When you cook a potato and then let it cool, the starch — mainly amylose — goes through something called retrogradation. It re-forms into a tighter structure that resists digestion in your small intestine. This creates what’s known as resistant starch, and the benefits are genuinely exciting:
- Lower blood sugar spike — less glucose gets absorbed quickly compared to eating the potato hot
- Feeds your gut bacteria — resistant starch travels intact to the colon, where it’s fermented into butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid that fuels colon cells and supports gut lining health
- More filling — slower digestion and those fermentation byproducts increase satiety
And the effect doesn’t fully disappear if you reheat it — some resistant starch sticks around. The same applies to cooled rice and pasta, so this isn’t just a potato party trick.
Serves 4 as a side | Prep 15 mins | Cook 20 mins
Ingredients
- 1kg new potatoes, whole
- 4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 1 bunch mint leaves
- 1 bunch coriander, leaves and soft stems
- 2 tbsp coriander seeds
- 40ml sherry vinegar
- 150ml olive oil
- 50g flaked almonds, lightly toasted
- 60g pitted kalamata olives, roughly torn
- Fine sea salt 1 tsp
Method
- Bring a large pot of well-salted water to the boil. Add the potatoes and cook for 20 minutes, until just fork-tender. Drain and set aside until cool enough to handle, then cut into quarters.
- Add the garlic, 1 bunch mint, 1 bunch coriander and coriander seeds to the small bowl of a blender and blitz to a rough paste.
- Add the vinegar, oil and 1 teaspoon of salt to the paste and blitz.
- Add the potatoes, almonds, olives, and the remaining herbs to the bowl, and gently stir to combine.
- Set aside and cool to room temperature before serving.
