Potato salad is one of those basic all-American dishes that everyone ought to have in their recipe repertoire. I’ve made a lot of different kinds of potato salad over the years, some versions better than others, but it goes so well with so many occasions that I’ve made an effort to refine a few techniques that bring out the best in it. Seasonings (and seasons) change, but these techniques form the three pillars of all my potato salad:
1. Cook the potatoes whole. I’ve cooked a lot of potatoes in my day and will say that this is the most flavor and texture preserving technique for potato salad. Good potatoes actually have a lot of flavor, and the dense waxy potatoes I use for salad have a firm, creamy texture. Peeling, cutting them up and cooking them in boiling water dilutes the flavor and the texture that I want to be a significant component in the salad. Imagine that – potatoes as a feature, rather than a vehicle for dressing in potato salad!
2. Soak the potato pieces in apple cider vinegar. To counter the creaminess of the dressing, the dense starchiness of the potatoes and the juicy crunch of vegetables, I infuse the potatoes with a flavorful acidic vinegar steam bath. It lifts and brightens the salad from a typical blandness to a subtly tangy well-balanced bite.
3. I use dashi soup powder in the dressing. This is the point at which I will tiptoe into a very hotly debated health topic: glutamate and MSG. This very interesting article in the Guardian explains the history and controversy far better and in more depth than I possibly can, but my takeaway on the topic is that glutamate is a naturally occurring flavor enhancer, found in concentrated forms in aged cheeses, kelp, fish, mushrooms and mother’s milk (yep). My preference is to use ingredients that are in their most natural usable form rather than those that are industrial by-products or manufactured compounds imitating a natural product. Sugar and salt are examples of this, rawer versions having more mineral content and flavor that more refined versions. I first heard about these dashi soup mixes from this post on No Recipes as a more natural version of the flavor enhancing properties of MSG. So, while I know this might be a controversial topic (what food isn’t these days anyway), it is something that I happily use and feed to the people who I love.
This is my favorite basic recipe:
Bacon Dill Potato Salad
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
2 pieces of smoked bacon
Dressing:
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup sour cream
1 small clove garlic
¼ red onion
2 ribs celery with tops
1 tablespoon dill weed
½ packet smoked bonito dashi mix
salt
fresh black pepper
Chop the bacon up and fry it. Once it is crisp and browned, remove the pieces from the fat they have rendered and set the bacon on paper to drain.
Wash the whole potatoes and cover them with an inch or two of salted water in a pot. Bring them to a low boil and cook until a sharp knife slides in and out of the center of the potato easily (given that the potatoes are cooked whole, it makes sense to try to get all of the same potatoes as close to the same size as you can). Time will vary, but start checking after 15-20 minutes.
Drain the water and let the potatoes cool just enough to be able to gingerly handle them. Cut the hot potatoes into bite sized pieces (I did eighths). Return them to their cooking pot and pour the apple cider vinegar over the potato pieces. Cover the pot with a lid and let the potatoes cool and soak up the vinegar.
While the potatoes are cooling, make the dressing. Mix the mayo and sour cream in a big bowl. Grate the small clove of garlic on a microplane grater, or use a garlic press or heavy knife to mash it into a paste. There should be about ½ teaspoon of garlic, just a hint in the dressing. Mince the onion and celery and stir the garlic, onion, and celery into the mayo and sour cream. If you have fresh dill weed, take the bigger stems out and roughly chop the fronds; dried can go into the mix whole. Add half of the packet of smoky bonito soup mix. Taste the dressing for salt, and add some if needed, keeping in mind that the potatoes have been cooked in salted water. Stir everything together well.
Once the potatoes have cooled to about room temperature, put them into a big enough bowl to stir the dressing into them with out them falling out all over the place. Pour the dressing over and grind about 10 grinds worth of black pepper over everything. At this point the bacon can be mixed into the potato salad too, or it can be sprinkled over the top of each serving. Mixed in, it loses a little of its crispness, but incorporates its flavor throughout the salad. Allow the potato salad to sit, refrigerated, for 30 minutes or so before serving (it’s even better the next day).
We had it last night with thin slices of peppery hangar steak and a cool tomato cucumber salad –
Cognitive Leeks 
I made the mistake of ordering potato salad in a restaurant last week. It was bland, as restaurant potato salad always is. Because, as I ranted at the time, you have to add the acid while the potatoes are still hot. Also, I think, the salt and pepper. It isn’t enough to put it in the dressing; they’ll never get seasoned properly unless you put the vinegar or lemon juice right on them. I just sprinkle them with cider vinegar, salt and pepper and leave them in a bowl to cool, but whatever.
Anyway, I don’t have to blog this now. Although from me it would be a rant about how a restaurant can fry chicken tenders perfectly for a kid’s meal but can’t do the littlest thing to make potato salad taste better than cotton balls, so maybe I still will, if I feel ornery enough.
I’ve been considering changing the name of the blog to “Just do as I say and no one gets hurt” so clearly I’m not the one to stop a good rant.
It’s unfortunate that so few people realize that potatoes have a potato flavor.That’s actually why I like potato salad, the potatoes.
@David
If you ever make your way to Dallas, Tx there’s a German place here called Kuby’s Sausage House that has the best potato salad I’ve ever had at a restaurant. And yes I completely agree, it’s beyond me how many places just can’t seem to make it good. It’s really not that hard. Start with fresh ingredients, keep it simple stupid and there you go.
@Christine
I agree. Potatoes do have their flavor of course and even then there are a lot of different kinds of potatoes. I will say though that there are some great variations on potato salad that can be just as simple and bring all the natural flavors out. For example instead of mayo or mustard, just some vinegar, salt, dill, and olive oil. And then you can expand on that even further.
Just please…don’t make it taste like something from McDonalds 😉
Keep ’em coming!