Asparagus New Potato Salad with Lentils

This lighter, vegan asparagus potato salad features spring asparagus, roasted new potatoes, greens, and chewy french lentils for protein. Mixed with a lemony mustard dressing while the potatoes are still warm, it’s a lovely spring salad. 

This post was originally published in June 2018. It has been updated with improvements to the text and recipe as of May 2020.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Method
• Garlic Mustard
• Substitutions
• Notes and Tips
• Asparagus New Potato Salad with Lentils

Adding asparagus to potato salad could never a bad thing, right? This one is adapted from my roasted new potato salad but simplified a bit, and with asparagus, the queen of spring (sorry rhubarb). For this particular version I mixed jack by the hedge, or garlic mustard, with the spinach.

It ends up being a pretty great light dinner, with lots of lentils to fill you up, and a surprisingly balanced meal for a potato salad. If nothing else it’s a very good reason to eat potato salad as a whole meal.

Ingredients

• New potatoes
• Olive oil
• Sea salt
• Green asparagus
• Fresh greens (spinach, garlic mustard, etc.)
• Green lentils (see below)

Plus lemons, mustard, garlic, pepper, and maple syrup for the dressing.

Method

The potatoes are mixed with some olive oil and salt, then roasted for about 40 minutes, with the asparagus added to the tray for the last five minutes. You really don’t want to overcook the asparagus – wait until the potatoes are quite golden, very nearly done, before adding it, to avoid limp stalks. A bit of crunch is a good thing.

The piping hot potatoes and asparagus are then added to a large bowl with the greens, lentils, and quickly mixed with the lemon dressing while everything is still hot. This is key! If you leave the potatoes to the side to cool, this will be blah and it should wow.

Mixing the dressing while everything is hot causes the greens to wilt, makes the fresh garlic in the dressing a bit milder, and allows the potatoes to absorb some of that lemon and mustard flavour. Make sure to eat it while it’s still warm, too.

Garlic Mustard

Garlic mustard is an invasive plant in North America (which means you can harvest as much as you want without worrying) but native to Europe. It used to be hugely popular as a seasoning or addition to dishes as long as 7000 (!) years ago.

It’s everywhere at this time of year, May/June, and a delicious, garlicky green that can be used as a substitute for spinach or other fresh greens. I use it for pesto, adding to salads like this one, and in soups and dishes like these coconut rice noodles.

I’ve used a mix of this and baby spinach, but if you have enough garlic mustard, go for it and use it as the lone green here. It’s excellent with the sharp mustard in the dressing. As with most greens, it’s best when small, so harvest as early as you can. It can be a bit overwhelming raw but wilted by the roasted potatoes, it’s a treat.

Substitutions

Someone always asks, for potato salad, if they can sub sweet potatoes. And you can, but the taste and texture are really not comparable. In this recipe in particular I don’t recommend it (if you really want to try, sub them in this curry potato salad instead). You can, however, use main crop potatoes if you don’t have new potatoes. Just cut them into smaller pieces.

Any kind of hardy green – that is, spinach, kale, swiss chard, rucola, mustard greens, and so on – can be used in place of the spinach and garlic mustard. If you can’t find garlic mustard but can get ramsons or wild garlic, you can use some of that instead.

I call for green lentils, but black or mountain lentils are good too. Something with some bite, so that excludes red lentils or big brown lentils, both of which cook up a bit too soft.

Notes and Tips

The dressing offers an optional tablespoon of white wine vinegar, and this is by personal preference. I love the lemon here, but also need a bit more of a kick than straight lemon provides. If you don’t like higher acidity, leave it out.

I recommend a waxy potato variety for this recipe, and any time you’re eating whole potatoes rather than mashing. Charlotte is one of my favourites, one that I grow in the garden, and widely available.

More Asparagus Recipes

Vegan Broccoli Pizza Crust with Spring Vegetables
Spring Green Vegetable Coconut Rice Noodles
Green Pea Hummus and a Spring Mezze
Spring Green Minestrone

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