My mom — Momma T — hands down makes the best version and the only version of potato salad that I consider to be worth-making. Potato salad gets a bad reputation for being covered in mayo, having no flavour, and being that one summer salad on the picnic bench that never gets touched because it looks like lumpy marshmallow fluff.
My friends, this potato salad will never be that potato salad. I don’t want to hear anybody whine about potato salad until they’ve tried this recipe. My mom made potato salad on one of two occasions — sometime in the summer time if we had a bbq with family friends, but always, ALWAYS around Easter time. Now, I couldn’t quite enjoy it around Easter time since I knew I’d be stuck in Ottawa, but I went ahead and cheered myself up and I hope this recipe does the same for you too.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 bag of baby red potatoes (I’d recommend 2 if you’re hosting people)
Quartered and boiled in salted water until they’re just soft enough - 1/2 red onion, diced
- 3 green onions, diced
- 4 or 5 medium sized garlicky dill pickles, diced
(Kind of a must!!) - 1/2 green apple, diced
- 3/4 cup of frozen peas, cooked already
(If you dunk them in ice water right after for a few seconds,
they’ll preserver their bright colour!) - 3 hard boiled eggs, yolk s removed and set aside and whites diced
- Fresh dill, I like an obscene amount of dilly-ness but a few sprigs
roughly chopped will do the job - Basil, optional and roughly chopped
DRESSING
- 1/3 cup of mayonnaise
- 1 tbsp of dijon or grainy mustard
- 1 tbsp of olive oil
- 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice
- 1 tsp of honey/maple syrup
- Salt and pepper
The most time-consuming thing about making this potato salad is all of the dices and fine cuts that need to be prepared ahead of time. The actual salad comes together quite fast afterwards, so here are some tips to make this recipe easy peasy:
make the dressing ahead of time
Make the dressing first and store in the fridge. I like to do a taste-test of the final product when all the ingredients and dressing have been combined — it gives a better sense of how much salt or pepper is needed as opposed to over-seasoning the dressing and then over-seasoning the salad.
all about that multi-tasking life
While chopping away, start those potatoes! They will most likely take anywhere from 20-25 minutes to cook, so put on a podcast or your favourite Spotify playlist and chill while you chop.
cook your eggs past jammy
I normally like a soft jammy inside when I boil eggs for breakfast, but a hard-boiled yolk will make your life easier when you’re making potato salad. From the moment they start to simmer slightly in the pot, set an 8-minute timer. When they’re ready, run the eggs under cold water and this will help cool them down enough to handle.
put it altogether
- In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the potato salad except for the egg yolks.
- Add the dressing, and toss together lightly so as not to break up the structure of the potatoes too much.
- Crumble the egg yolks into the salad using your fingertips.
The yolks bring a silkiness to the salad and are easier to distribute when you add them separately rather than altogether at the beginning. - Lastly, mix altogether once more and taste for seasoning.
I also suggest that at this point, if you aren’t sure what it’s missing, plastic wrap that bowl and pop it in the fridge overnight. You’ll get a better sense of what it’s missing once all the flavours meld together. This salad will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days but I bet you won’t be able to contain yourself for that long.
Peace and good eats, guys!
-A❁
Little Girl, Big Eats 