Potato salad is the quintessential summer side dish. If you’re looking for new ways to make it for your upcoming backyard barbecues, this Potato Salad Recipes list is for you.
For more ideas of what to make, check out all of our recipes.
Potato salad is something you see at every backyard barbecue. They don’t feel complete without potato salad as a side dish.
But, honestly, potato salad can be really boring. And when you’re choosing food at the cookout, you don’t want to waste precious plate space on boring potato salad.
Trust me when I tell you that none of the recipes on this list are boring. They’re all potato salads that I make constantly — and end up getting finished before the party ends. That means no leftovers for me, though. So keep that in mind when you’re making these.
If you bought a gigantic bag of potatoes and you’re trying to figure out ways to use them besides more potato salad, our list of Budget-Friendly Potato Recipes is filled with ideas.
4 Easy Potato Salad Recipes
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As we add more potato salad recipes to Drugstore Divas, we’ll update this post. So be sure to save it (pin it, bookmark it, however you save posts) and come back to it from time to time to see what new delicious recipes we’ve added.
Classic Potato Salad
This is such an easy recipe for a Classic Potato Salad. It’s just like the recipe your grandma used to make, with regular Russet potatoes, yellow mustard, real mayonnaise, and three hard-boiled eggs. The egg yolks go into the dressing and the egg whites go into a bowl with the potatoes.
Combine everything with very minimal seasoning (just like granny would) and you have the classic potato salad recipe from your childhood.
Deviled Egg Potato Salad
Deviled eggs are one of my favorite side dishes. They’re so good. So, what I do is take all the deviled eggs and potato salad ingredients and combine them into a really delicious and easy potato salad recipe.
This Deviled Egg Potato Salad is similar to the classic potato salad recipe in that it has eggs and potatoes, but the seasoning and texture is really different.
Vegan Avocado Potato Salad
Mayonnaise isn’t the only way to get really creamy potato salads. In this Vegan Avocado Potato Salad, you make a creamy dressing from avocado, garlic, olive oil, fresh herbs, and a few other simple ingredients. That makes up for the missing mayo.
Pour the dressing over boiled, starchy potatoes and avocado chunks and stir to get a potato salad with so much flavor, you won’t even realize that it’s vegan.
Loaded Baked Potato Salad
My go-to recipe is this Loaded Potato Salad. It tastes just like the inside of a baked potato, but in potato salad form.
You boil the potatoes, then combine them with sour cream, crunchy bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, green onions, and some simple seasoning. It’s such a good potato salad and always the biggest hit of the pot luck.
Tips For Making Potato Salad
Russet potatoes are my personal preference for potato salad because that’s a starchy potato. The starch content is higher than waxy potatoes like red potatoes or Yukon gold potatoes. Starchy potatoes get a little mushier, meaning you’ll get a creamier potato salad.
Yes. Make sure you’re boiling your potatoes in salted water. That’s the only way that the potatoes will absorb any seasoning.
So, add a tablespoon of salt to a large pot of water and you’ll end up with a delicious, and not bland, potato salad.
Peeling off the potato skins should always be the first thing you do when you’re making potato salad. The skins will add an extra texture — one that’s not great for potato salad.
The only exception would be if you use white potatoes because that skin will basically disintegrate off the cooked potatoes into the boiling water, but I don’t use those potatoes in my potato salad recipes.
If you’re adding any cheese, you want to stir that into warm potatoes. Cooled potatoes won’t melt the cheese, so you’ll end up with clumps of cold cheese and that’s not what you want.
If you’re adding a dressing, you can stir that into either hot potatoes, cold potatoes, or room temperature potatoes. It doesn’t really matter.
I always make my potato salad in an airtight container that has a lid. That’s easier to transport, but it’s also great because you can just close the lid (if you have it sitting on a food table at family gatherings) and you don’t have to worry about flies getting into it.
Then, if you have any leftovers, you can just put the lid on and store the potato salad in the fridge.
Which of these potato salad recipes are you going to make first? Let us know in the comments.