Newfoundland Cold Plate. A traditional post Christmas favourite.
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Newfoundland Cold Plate. A traditional post Christmas favourite. Here's a simple guide to putting together this simple, nostalgic favourite of Newfoundlanders everywhere.
A Newfoundland cold plate is something everyone in the province will know. In such, every family will have their own variations of essential additions to their particular version.
Growing up in the 60's & 70's in Newfoundland, a cold plate was actually a weekly occurrence. After the Sunday roast of beef, ham, chicken or turkey the leftover cold meats would be served up for supper with a variety of deli-type potato salads, pasta salad and coleslaw.
Now mostly for special occasions.
Nowadays, this meal is recognized more as a bit of an indulgence. It's served in my own family only a few times a year now, usually following big Holiday meals like at Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas.
A cold plate can also be the theme for a coordinated pot luck supper around the Holidays. Each person can be delegated to bring a particular cold sliced meat or a selected salad. It's also a terrific buffet idea for parties or open houses during the Holidays which is how we most often serve it.
My take on the traditional Newfoundland Cold Plate.
For the purposes of this post I am going to concentrate on a few of our family favourites as pictured in the photo at the top.
Looking clockwise from the cranberry sauce at the top of the plate, you will see coleslaw, picked beet potato salad, mustard potato salad, egg and apple potato salad and a simple pasta salad. The pasta salad is shown using farfalle pasta for presentation sake, but one we most often made with plain macaroni growing up.
Continuing past the pasta salad is leftover roast beef, ham and leftover turkey. Between the turkey and cranberry sauce is Traditional Newfoundland Dressing. This is a breadcrumb, onion and summer savoury based stuffing for poultry which is universally used in Newfoundland.
To be honest, these are barely recipes at all really and any of the amounts can be adjusted to personal taste.
The coldplate photo got such a keen response when I posted it to our Facebook Page a few months ago. I resolved to write this post more as a guide for some of the many people who requested that I post the recipes included on the plate. I hope you enjoy trying some of them.
UPDATE:
By request I've added Pineapple Corn Salad to the recipes included below, even though it isn't pictured on the plate.
A note about the corn salad.
We would have used canned corn and crushed pineapple in the past. These are both fine if that's what you have available. Using frozen sweet corn (or even fresh, in season) along with fresh diced golden pineapple takes this simple combination of flavours up a considerable notch.
2019 Update! I've now added a super easy, 4 ingredient Sweet Mustard Sauce recipe, that's a great addition to any cold plate dinner.
Other possible additions to your Newfoundland Cold Plate.
Some other cold salads you can try for this meal can include any of these that have previously appeared on Rock Recipes.
- Lemon Chive Grilled Corn Salad
- Lemon Shrimp Pasta Salad
- Dijon Coleslaw
- Deviled Egg Potato Salad
- Copycat Kraft Macaroni Salad
- Southwestern Chipotle Lime Pasta Salad
- Bacon Potato Salad with Sweet Mustard Dressing
- Garden Pasta Salad with Lemon Dijon Dressing
- Honey Dijon Pasta Salad
- Lemon Waldorf Potato Salad
- Caesar Potato Salad
- Puttanesca Pasta Salad
- Penne Pasta Salad with Shrimp Chili & Lime
- Lemon Mint Orzo Salad
- Caesar Potato Salad
- Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad
Like this Newfoundland Cold Plate recipe post?
You'll find many more traditional and Newfoundland inspired recipes in our Newfoundland section and even more great dishes in our Fish & Seafood Category.
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Newfoundland Cold Plate
Newfoundland Cold Plate - a traditional post Christmas favourite. Heres a simple guide to putting together this simple, nostalgic favourite of Newfoundlanders everywhere.
Ingredients
For the Coleslaw
- 1 cup salad dressing
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoon sugar
- 2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- pinch salt
- 4 cups cabbage, shredded
- 1 cup carrot, grated
For the Beet Potato Salad
- 6 cups plain mashed potato
- 1 cup salad dressing
- 1 rounded tablespoon sugar, optional
- 4 tablespoon picked beet juice, approximately
- 1 cup picked beets, finely diced
For the Mustard Potato salad
- 6 cups plain mashed potato
- 1 cup salad dressing
- 1 rounded tablespoon sugar, optional
- ⅓ cup plain yellow mustard, more or less to taste
Egg & Apple Potato Salad
- 6 cups cooked potato, diced or cut in small chunks
- 1 cup salad dressing
- 1 large Granny Smith Apple, diced or cut in small chunks
- ½ teaspoon black pepper, coarsely ground
- 3 hard boiled eggs, roughly chopped
- pinch salt
For the Macaroni Salad
- 6 cups cooked macaroni, rinsed in cold water and well drained
- 1 cup salad dressing
- 1 small carrot, finely grated
- ¼ cup sweet pickle relish
- pinch salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper, coarsely ground
- 4 hard boiled eggs, roughly chopped
For the Pineapple Corn Salad
- 3 cups frozen sweet corn
- 1 cup fresh golden pineapple, diced
- salt and pepper to season
- ½ cup salad dressing, more or less to taste
Instructions
To prepare the Coleslaw
- Mix together the salad dressing, vegetable oil, sugar, vinegar and salt. Let sit 5 minutes, then stir again.
- Toss with the carrot and cabbage. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Note: One variation I have seen on this basic recipe is to substitute the carrot for well drained crushed pineapple to make Pineapple Coleslaw.
To prepare the Beet Potato Salad, mustard Potato Salad, Egg & Apple Potato Salad or Macaroni Salad.
- Simply mix together all of the ingredients until very well combined.
- Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
To prepare the Pineapple Corn Salad
- Blanch the frozen corn in salted boiling water for 2-3 minutes.
Drain well and plunge into cold water. Drain for 5 minutes to get rid of the excess water.
- Toss the drained corn with all of the other ingredients until well combined.
- Cover and chill until ready to serve.
Notes
SALAD DRESSING: Most potato and pasta salads call for salad dressing which is the jarred, spoonable type dressing, like Kraft Miracle Whip which looks much like mayonnaise. If you want to make a substitute using mayonnaise, simply mix together 1 cup mayonnaise with 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, 1 rounded tablespoon of white sugar and a dash of paprika. Stir well and let stand for 5 minutes before stirring again and using in the recipe.
A cold plate is generally a make ahead meal at our house. Generally all of the salads are made a day in advance so that they are well chilled but a few hours refrigeration is will do.
Recommended Products
Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.
Nutrition Information
Yield
16Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 730Total Fat 41gSaturated Fat 7gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 32gCholesterol 103mgSodium 951mgCarbohydrates 79gFiber 8gSugar 19gProtein 13g
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
I live in the state of Virginia in USA. We cannot get summer savoury. How can I obtain it...or the seeds? Would appreciate knowing.
Try searching for Mt. Scio Savoury online. There are a couple of mail order places to find it. Vesey's Seeds did carry the seeds if I recall correctly.
I don't know if you ever found any summer savoury, but you can get it on Amazon.com. I also have found tiny ottles of it in the spice section at the supermarket. It's not Mt. Scio or anything, but it works as well. Same plant, just not grown in Newfoundland.
thank you ,iam so excited to get those recipes. I have 3 of your books .they are the best I have ever had in my home . some old and some new.thanks again.
Hello Barry
I don't know if you remember me but we had contact a few years back on the Canadian Food Network Community pages . I had forgotten about your blog until this article was shared on a small friends recipe exchange I had joined.
Good to see you are carrying on you blog. I had always found it interesting ! I still maintain contact with some of the Community via Facebook. etc. Val, the Community Co-Ordinator , is running her own decorating business , Ken Bowie is Executive Chef at a large recreation facility in Fort McMurray & has plenty of tales about the big fire obviously. Suzie the Foodie is now in Vancouver and we did make actual personal contact a while ago. Seems like ages. She is still blogging and is enjoying life back in the Lower Mainland .I am now retired and just fooling around with different stuff as I used to do .
Well that about fills that in and I will look in more often on your blog. Keep up the good work .
Regards
Wayne
Nice to hear from you Wayne. I still dee some Facebook posts from those folks. It's great to see Canadian foodies being so active. Happy New Year, Barry.
Love your books, your salad recipes bring back memories, thanks. I hope to get Rock 2. , soon, Mason was out.
Glad you liked the recipes? Where's Mason? Is it a book store?
I would like the stuffing recipe. Your cold plate looks so delicious. Reminds me of my moms Sunday suppers when I lived at home.
You can read about how we do our "Newfoundland Dressing" here.
To produce 6 cups of cooked macaroni, how much ery do you use? An entire 500g Box?
I usually assume it will double in size.
Hello Barry
My Nan used to make mustard salad and also a sauce to pour over it. It was delicious and I have never been able to find a recipe for it. It was a creamy pale yellow pourable sauce that was a little sweet and and little tangy. Foolish that I didn't ask her how she made it. If you have heard of it I would love to know how to make it. Thanks
Yes, we made that too using miracle whip, yellow mustard sugar and a little milk. Most people adjust the amounts to taste. Maybe use 1/2 cup Miracle whip, add 3 tbsp mustard, 1 tsp sugar and enough milk to bring it to the right consistency. Tweak it to your taste from there.
Barry,
Just curious—- the shown plate of food, does it serve ONE person? It looks like a LOT of food!
The pink coloured salad intrigues me, too. So pretty!
It is a single serving and is quite filling! In truth, my wife and I would probably share that amount. The beet salad is Spouses Fave.
Hi Barry
There’s a different variation of the dressing that I’ve seen on most coldplates served and baby or bridal showers. It’s baked I’m thinking and it turns out solid. Hoping to find that recope🙂 As well, there’s the usual different flavoured jelly salads that also show up. All good tasting!!
Love your recipes and glad that you post pics to go with them!!
Take care!
Hi Barry
There’s a different variation of the dressing that I’ve seen on most coldplates served at baby or bridal showers. It’s baked I’m thinking and it turns out solid. Hoping to find that recipe🙂 As well, there’s the usual different flavoured jelly salads that also show up at pot luck get togethers. All good tasting!!
Love your recipes and glad that you post pics to go with them!!
Take care!
Hello there. My wife of 54 yrs is from stellarton N.S. the cold plate was a regulare treat. ,I spent time in NFLD and enjoyed many wonderful meals all over the Province. Thank you for all the wonderful recipes.
Just wondering if you forgot to add some sugar in your mustard salad recipe?
This cold plate looks delicious. It reminded me of a vanished delicacy in the UK: Heinz tinned Vegetable Salad. I wonder if you've made it? It was similar to Russian Salad. I've tried to replicate it from memory but there's something missing. Perhaps it's made with salad cream and I've used mayo. I'd love to be able to taste it again.
Markets used to sell it here in Canada as well. I think you are right about the salad cream. It needs sharpness from vinegar or lemon.