Yukon Gold Potatoes (photo © Bonnie Plants).

If you haven’t yet selected a potato salad recipe for Labor Day weekend, we’d like to suggest this Greek Potato Salad. One way to make a potato salad recipe even better is to cross it with another favorite recipe—in this case, the Greek salad.

This recipe is courtesy Mooney Farms, which makes the Bella Sun Luci brand of sundried tomato products.

There’s more about sundried tomatoes below.
 
 
RECIPE: GREEK POTATO SALAD

Ingredients For 4 Servings

 
For The Dressing

1. PLACE potatoes in a 2-quart saucepan with 2 teaspoons of salt. Add water to approximately 2 inches above the potatoes.

Cook, covered until tender, approximately 12 minutes. Do not overcook or the potatoes will fall apart in the salad.

2. COMBINE the potatoes, sundried tomatoes and cucumber in bowl. Toss gently with hands. Arrange the onion, cheese, olives and basil leaves atop potato mixture.

3. WHISK together the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper to taste.

The olive oil and lemon juice are in a 3:1 ratio. For one cup of dressing, use 3/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup lemon juice.

You can use the olive oil drained from the tomatoes as part of the olive oil measure.

4. DRIZZLE the dressing over the potato salad.

Sun-dried tomatoes are ripe tomatoes that have been sun-dried or oven-dried, causing most of the moisture to evaporate. The larger the tomato, the more moisture evaporates—up to 93%. As a result, it takes from 8 to 14 kilos of fresh tomatoes to make a single kilo of sundried tomatoes.

Originally made from red plum tomatoes, today sundried tomatoes are available in a assorted tomato varieties, colors and shapes (halves and julienne-cut, for example).

Naturally sundried tomatoes spend 4-10 days in the sun, and are usually pre-treated with sulfur dioxide, which prevents spoilage by bacteria and oxidation. No nutrition is lost in the drying process.

Sundried tomatoes may also be preserved in olive oil, along with other ingredients such as rosemary, basil, dried paprika, and garlic.

Sundried tomatoes are a boon when vine-ripened tomatoes are out of season. But they also work year-round in recipes where ripe, raw tomatoes don’t fit as well.

Bella Sun Lucie has a robust line of sundried products, made from California-grown tomatoes:

 
Purées and sundried tomato sauces are available from other manufacturers.
 
 
SUN-DRIED VS. SUNDRIED

The original, hyphenated, form of the word has evolved into a compound word (similar to web-site and website). Take your choice.

THE NIBBLE uses “sundried,” except when referring to products that are spelled “sun-dried” by their manufacturers.