This type of food includes diced cooked vegetables (red beets, potatoes, carrots), chopped onions, as well as sauerkraut and/or brined pickles.

Along with Olivier salad and dressed herring, vinegret is served as zakuska on celebration tables in Russophone communities.

Despite the widespread popularity in Russia and Ukraine, the basic mixed salad recipes were adopted from Western European cuisines as late as the 19th century.

[3] Modern Russian and Ukrainian cookbooks still mention the possibility of adding mushrooms, meat or fish,[3][4][5] but this is rarely practiced.

Examples are herring salad and beetroot salad in North German and Scandinavian cuisines[7] (see also de:Heringssalat, sv:Rödbetssallad), as well as rosolli in Finnish cuisine, with the name for the latter stemming from rassol (Russian: рассол), the Russian word for brine.