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Potato salad recipes
Here are some potato salad recipes that are both tastier than the mushy store-bought variety, and not that challenging to make.
One of the key tricks to making a delicious potato salad is not to overcook the potatoes. If you start with small, whole, unskinned new potatoes you'll not only get a tastier flavor but you're less likely to overcook them. Also, remember that the fresher the potato, the higher its water content and therefore the less time it takes to cook.
But potatoes can't be new all year round - potatoes are, after all, one of the great storage crops, that you can harvest in late summer and fall (or let a farmer harvest for you) and keep eating all through the winter. And potatoes are a great way to store solar energy until you're ready to eat it! Just remember that potatoes are high in starch, so if you eat serving after serving of potato salad, you'll either need to get a ton of exercise to burn it off, or it all turns into fat and you become a couch potato!
One of my favorite potato salad recipes combines new red-skinned potatoes with fresh dill, sour cream, red onions, and freshly fried bacon bits. Or you can go for more traditional potato salad recipes like the Great American Picnic potato salad, made with hard boiled eggs, cucumber, and mayonnaise. Or how about a pasta potato salad? It's a double-carb deal but great to eat the night before a big bike ride or an Iron Man!
New redskin potatoes with bacon and dill
Real new potatoes are hard to come by - but often enough you can get small redskinned potatoes that taste almost as fresh and as sweet. You can make potato salad recipes with whole, halved, or sliced potatoes depending on how big the variety you find are. And because there are no egg products in it, you don't need to worry about salmonella poisoning if it's left out unrefrigerated too long, which makes it great for picnics.
Ingredients
2 lb small red potatoes
4 oz smoked bacon or pancetta or speck, sliced 1/8 inch thick
4 tbsp fresh dill weed or 2 tsp dried
3 tbsp fresh parsley
1 medium red onion, diced
1 cup light sour cream
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp sugar (optional)
1 tsp salt
Directions
1. Start a large pot of water to boil. You should use at least twice as much water as you have potatoes.
2. Wash the potatoes and cut away any obvious blemishes, without skinning. For potatoes larger than 1 1/2 inches in diameter, cut the potatoes into smaller pieces. Place in the pot of boiling water.
3. Once water returns to a boil, lower the burner to a simmer, and cook the potatoes gently while preparing other ingredients. Check after 20 minutes, then every 3-4 minutes thereafter to see when they're done. A fork or paring knife pushed into the center should go in easily, with little resistance. Heavily cracked or exploded potatoes usually indicate that the potatoes are overcooked.
4. Cut the uncooked bacon, pancetta or speck into 1/2 inch squares. Fry over medium heat until cooked but not overly browned or crunchy. Remove from heat and drain away fat.
5. If using fresh dill, wash the dill weed, trim away any seed heads or stalks, and chop the fine leaves to 1/4 inch lengths. Wash the parsley and mince finely.
6. Mix the sour cream, mustard, sugar and salt in a two-cup measuring cup or a small cooking bowl. Whisk well to blend.
7. Drain the cooked potatoes. If potatoes are large, you can slice them to absorb more of the dressing. Add to a large bowl, and toss the dressing on top. Stir carefully so that the potatoes become coated with dressing without being crushed or mashed. Toss in the dill, parsley and red onion.
The hot potatoes, mixed with the other, room-temperature or cold ingredients, should leave this salad warm or slightly cool. The flavors will be stronger when the salad is fresh than after it's refrigerated, so try to serve it right after you make it!
Classic potato salad
This is one of my husband's favorite potato salad recipes. He'll spend an hour in the kitchen throwing this potato salad together, and will eat it for lunch, dinner, and snacks for three or four days in a row until it's all gone. Fortunately he's a cyclist and burns off all that starch and fat, otherwise we'd have to widen the doors! And fortunately for the rest of us, he eats most of it before we start to get sick of it!
The combination of hard boiled eggs, cucumber and potatoes goes very well with the mayonnaise mustard dressing. Enjoy!
Ingredients
3 lbs potatoes
5 hard boiled eggs
2 cucumbers - English, or peeled regular
3 green onions or half a small red onion
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp fresh dill weed, or 1 tsp dried
4 tbsp fresh parsley
Directions
1. Remove blemishes from the potatoes and cut into 1 to 1-1/2 inch pieces. Bring a pot of water to the boil and add the potatoes. When water returns to the boil, lower heat to a simmer. Cook for 20 minutes, and test for doneness every 3 minutes thereafter until done. Meanwhile, work through the rest of the recipe below.
2. Peel the hard boiled eggs and rinse away any bits of remaining shell. Cut in half on the long axis, then cut each half again in half on the long axis, then cut crosswise, to make eight pieces from each egg (plus any bits of yoke that separate from the whites). Set aside.
3. Peel the cucumbers if the peels are not edible (English cucumbers or well-scrubbed pickling cucumbers can be used with the peel on; standard waxed supermarket cucumbers should be peeled). Cut in half lengthwise, cut each half into thirds lengthwise, and cut each length into inch-long pieces. Add to a large salad bowl.
4. Mince the green onions or red onion and add to bowl.
5. When the potatoes are done, drain the hot water, and add cold water to the pot. Let sit for 2-3 minutes to cool. Drain again. Add to bowl.
6. Mix the mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, sugar and salt in a small bowl until the sugar and salt are well blended in. Add the dressing to the salad and fold in.
7. Mince the dill weed (if using fresh) and the parsley and sprinkle on top.
8. When you're ready to serve the salad, toss again to blend in the herbs.
You can also find lots of delicious German potato salad recipes at Quick-German-Recipes.com. And for a potato salad picnic, a great dessert is cupcakes - find everything you want to know about cupcakes at All-About-Cupcakes.com.
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