Potato Salad

8 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes

Classic Potato Salad with a creamy mayonnaise dressing with relish, mustard and celery salt coating potatoes and chopped hard boiled eggs.

Potato Salad has been a popular Side Dish for centuries. It’s perfect in the summer at BBQ’s and picnics, serving this along with Easy Pulled Pork and our fan favorite Fried Chicken.

Potato Salad

Potato Salad doesn’t just have to be for summer. It’s a perfect side dish to go alongside weeknight dinners heavy on meat.

This potato salad is the classic recipe you’re looking for. This is the tested, delicious classic recipe you’ve grown up enjoying. By making it yourself, you can skip the deli or grocery store and can keep the extra money in your pocket.

POTATO SALAD INGREDIENTS

How do you make classic potato salad? Classic potato salad is made of russet potatoes, hard boiled eggs, mayonnaise, mustard and sometimes relish. You don’t need to use eggs in your potato salad if you don’t prefer them, but for those who do, directions are below for how to hard boil eggs for this recipe.

  • Potatoes: The classic potato used in potato salad is the russet potato but you can certainly use red potatoes or even Yukon Potatoes. The Yukon (or gold) potato had a more buttery flavor and creamy texture in this Yukon Gold and Green Onion Potato Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette, but in order to keep this as much of a classic as possible, you might prefer russet potatoes.
  • Eggs: These are an optional, but classic addition. You can certainly leave them out and add in an extra potato instead.
  • Mayonnaise: Regular or light work great, you won’t taste the difference. For swaps look below for more options.
  • Relish: We use sweet relish but for an added depth of flavor but you can use dill pickle relish in equal quantities if desired.
  • Mustard: Personal preference, we use dijon mustard in the recipe. Yellow or Spicy Brown will work well too, the mayonnaise tempers the strong flavors well.
  • Celery: This adds a crunch to your recipe, with the softer texture of your potatoes and eggs having a textural difference is important. If you don’t like celery you can swap for red bell peppers or jicama.
  • Onion: A classic flavor, this is blended into the dressing so you don’t bite into onion pieces. If you want to skip the food processor step simply finely mince the onions instead so you don’t bite into large pieces of onion.
  • Celery Salt: Celery salt is a classic flavor in potato salad, you can swap the plain salt for more celery salt if desired.
  • Ground Mustard: This adds the classic yellow color to your potato salad. You can swap any other mustard you’d like (we recommend 1-2 teaspoons of a bottled mustard).

How to Hard Boil Eggs:

  1. Place the eggs in a large pot with cold water covering them by 1 inch and bring the water to a simmer.
  2. Cover with a lid, turn off the heat and let sit for 10 minutes before removing the eggs and placing in ice water then peeling.

TIPS FOR MAKING HARD BOILED EGGS

  • Peel the eggs right after they come out of the ice bath, otherwise it might be difficult to get the shell off.
  • Salt the water when you’re boiling the eggs, which helps them peel easily when they’re done.

EASY SUMMER SIDE RECIPES

VARIATIONS ON POTATO SALAD

  • Dill Pickles or Pickle Juice: This is a classic mix-in idea many people love. If you want a less sweet flavor swap out the relish for finely diced dill pickles instead.
  • Apple Cider Vinegar and Oil: If you are averse to mayonnaise you can make this potato salad mayo-free with a vinaigrette instead. It won’t be creamy but it will still be full of flavor. Use apple cider vinegar in place of white vinegar which is just too harsh.
  • Sour Cream: If you want to cut back on the amount of mayonnaise you can swap out some of the mayonnaise for sour cream or greek yogurt, but don’t swap out more than half the mayo this way or it won’t taste anything like classic potato salad anymore.
  • Yellow Mustard: If you like a stronger acid flavor but want to keep the mixture creamy add in some yellow mustard instead of ground mustard.
  • Dijon Mustard or Hot Mustard: Either mellow out the mustard flavor or give the potato salad a kick with either of these options.
  • Bacon: You’ll never go wrong with bacon, add most of to the salad when mixing and garnish with the rest.
  • Onions: This recipe calls for yellow onions, but red onions would be a mellow addition.
 

EASY RECIPES TO SERVE WITH POTATO SALAD:

Tips For Making Potato Salad

  • Lighten up the calories in this recipe by using light mayonnaise and boiled and chopped egg whites. You can also swap half the mayonnaise for plain Greek yogurt.
  • Add a dash of cayenne pepper, curry powder, dill, or paprika to the potato salad to add some spice and flavor.
  • Swap in dijon mustard instead of ground mustard to add a deeper flavor.

How to Store Potato Salad:

  • Serve: Potato Salad is traditionally served up chilled and it has mayonnaise in it, so you shouldn’t leave it out for longer than about 2 hours.
  • Store: You can keep the salad for up to about 3 days in the fridge, as long as it’s kept in something airtight.
  • Freeze: Potato should be eaten fresh or out of the fridge, freezing mayonnaise based recipes is not recommended.
Classic Potato Salad

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Potato Salad Recipe

Classic Potato Salad with a creamy mayonnaise dressing with relish, mustard and celery salt coating potatoes and chopped hard boiled eggs.
Yield 8 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Course Side Dish
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 5 medium russet potatoes , peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
  • 1/2 yellow onion , diced finely
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
  • 3/4 cup mayonnaise , (regular or light)
  • 3 large hard boiled eggs , peeled and chopped
  • 1 stalk celery , diced finely
  • 1/4 cup sweet pickle relish

Instructions

  • Add potatoes to a large pot and fill with water until the potatoes are 1-2" below the water level and bring to a boil on high heat.
  • Reduce heat to medium-high and cook potatoes for 6-8 minutes until they're easily pierced by a fork but still firm.
  • Drain the potatoes and let them cool in a large mixing bowl for 10 minutes.
  • Add the onion, salt, celery salt, mustard and mayonnaise to a food processor to combine or whisk together (if you whisk grate the onion first).
  • In your large mixing bowl with the potatoes, add the eggs, celery, sweet relish and mayonnaise mixture mix well (gently) before refrigerating for at least two hours.

Video

Nutrition

Calories: 106kcal | Carbohydrates: 3g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 73mg | Sodium: 439mg | Potassium: 46mg | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 215IU | Vitamin C: 0.7mg | Calcium: 13mg | Iron: 0.3mg
Potato Salad collage

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. This is one of the most delicious potato salad recipes I’ve tried – and I’ve tried a lot! Love it so much!

  2. Serving my fav steak with this potato salad is definitely worth it! It is so creamy and delicious, even the picky kids loved it!

  3. This is the tastiest potato salad! I found this recipe just in time for grilling season! It’s going to be the perfect summer side!

  4. I love a good potato salad; I love this recipe! It is the perfect blend of savory without a hint of sweetness which is a big no-go for me.

  5. Hi Sabrina,
    The potatoe salad was a real treat! I cooked ribs in the oven, usually I do them on the grill but here in Northern Ontario we still have two feet of snow and only 7 degrees. So I brought a little taste of spring to us, my husband went back for salad seconds. Thank you ??

  6. This is the potato salad I grew up with and as long as the ‘sauce’ is right, potato varieties are fine. Very popular at pot lucks or even just the dinner table.

  7. The BEST, as far as I’m concerned! My mom taught me to make it this way, and I always do. Every time I bring it to an event, I’m asked for the recipe. We also prefer Yukon Gold. They’re my all around favorite for almost everything. Sometimes I add in some finely minced fresh dill, if I have it (not too much). Yum!

    1. Picky, picky, since you (& we readers) ALREADY knew what was meant! Why even bother to ask?

  8. Potato salads are great, as they are fast and easy to prepare! I need to try this recipe out at the weekend! 🙂