Egg & Olive Salad

Recipe may easily be doubled If you want to make a slightly different spin on this classic salad, the following add-ins are delightful options to the olives: dill, sunflower seeds, mustard, paprika (usually to garnish--try smoked if you have it), crumbled bacon, pickle relish, capers, sriracha, and avocado.

Yields 4 servings

Ingredients

I like to cut some of the eggs in smaller pieces and chop some in large pieces. That way, the salad has good consistency with some big chunks of egg white popping out.
6 hard boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped
1/3 rounded cup finely chopped celery (may include leaves if you like)*
1/4 cup chopped green olives with pimentos**
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon brine from the olives
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste
Optional: 2 tablespoons minced sweet onion
To Serve: sandwich rolls, pitas, or bread; mixed salad greens, tomato slices, and/or a combination of carrots, celery, and cucumber sticks/slices for scooping

Put one egg in the bottom of a mixing bowl and chop roughly with the side of a fork.
Put another egg on top and chop roughly again with the fork. Repeat with remaining eggs until all the eggs are chopped together with pieces no larger than the size of a piece of bubble gum (*see notes).
Stir in the mayonnaise, olives, onions, mustard or pickle juice, celery seed, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust if necessary.
Chill until ready to serve.
Serve cold on soft sandwich rolls with additional olives on top, if desired.

*If I don’t have celery on hand, you may add 1/4 teaspoon celery seed to lend a hint of the celery flavor. Ideally though, I do like the hint of crunch provided by the celery. Also, celery gives off some water when combined with salt. After sitting in the fridge overnight, you’ll want to stir the egg salad to incorporate the juices that will settle on the bottom of the bowl. Optionally, you may pre-chop the celery, stirring it in or sprinkling on top of the egg salad when served.
**The salad may absolutely be made without olives. In this case, you may wish to increase the amount of salt by another pinch or two. (When omitting the olives, I use about 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt.)