Home Made Potato Salad 07-Jun-2011

Categories: salads Tags: potatoes

This is just a basic potato salad, easy to make. Who needs store-bought stuff when it’s this easy to make!

Ingredients

  • 2 large potatoes
  • 2 jumbo eggs
  • 1/2 a sweet onion
  • 2 - 3 stalks celery
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • 4 tbsp mayo or Miracle Whip
  • 1-2 tbsp yellow mustard
  • 2 tbsp sweet pickle relish
  • a dash of paprika

Directions

  1. Place eggs in a sauce pan, cover with cold water and bring to a boil. When the water boils take the pan off the head and let the eggs cook in the hot water for about 15 minutes. Drain the hot water and run cool water over the eggs.

  2. Wash the potatoes, scrubbing them so most of the dirt is gone. Keep the skin on and dice the potatoes to a 1/2 cube (keeping them nicely bite-sized). Cover them in water, add a dash of salt and boil for 15 minutes until fork-tender.

  3. While those tatties and eggs are boiling, chop up the 1/2 onion super fine and set aside.

  4. Chop the celery stalks up, keeping them on the small side, but not too small. 1/8 inch dice is maybe on the small side.

  5. Drain and run cold water over the potatoes until they’re cool.

  6. Put the potatoes in a large bowl. Shell the eggs and run them through an egg slicer twice crosswise (or just loosely mash them up with a fork, but keep the pieces from getting too mushy). Place the chopped eggs, celery, and onion on the potatoes.

  7. Here’s where it gets a little loose. Salt and pepper to taste, although you may want to add more than you might think, because it’s a lot of potato to season.

  8. Scoop the mayo onto the mess. I said 4 tablespoons but c’mon, it might need more than that.

  9. Mustard is definitely optional if it’s not your thing. I use plain old yellow mustard and I like more than 1-2 tablespoons. This isn’t something to measure exactly either, more like how much you like.

  10. Sweet pickle relish for us. Some folks prefer dill. You do you. If you want to chop up a couple of dill pickles, go for it. Try to keep all the juice though, because it makes a difference in the mixup.

  11. Paprika. Some folks think it’s only for decoration. Some of us know paprika, and we know it well. I add in a lot more than a dash usually, and mix up regular and smoked.

  12. Blend it all together, using a large spoon, continually scooping from the bottom to bring the bits to the top to get mixed with the seasonings. Dont be too exuberant, just smooth and complete.

  13. Chill that pile of goodness for at least a couple hours, even better overnight. Before serving, give it another stir.

  14. Okay, you can add that dash of paprika on top for looks now, too.

Variations

You can do a ton of things to tweak this basic thing, go nuts, have fun, let your tater freak fly!

  • green onions instead of sweet onion (you probably don’t want to do as fine a dice on them, the green tops are rather cute)
  • chives
  • a small bit of red onion, diced
  • bacon bits
  • sunflower seeds
  • toasted sesame seeds
  • a dash of cayenne pepper
  • okay, I’ve heard of people putting in raisins, even craisins, but I’ve not tried that.
  • dill weed (not with sweet relish)
  • red potatoes
  • fingerling potatoes
  • sweet potatoes
  • combine all the different potatoes

Potato salad is humble, and lovable, and nearly infinitely adaptable. Dice the thing, boil it, and add some sort of dressing and other tasty bits as you see fit.

There’s like 10 million variations online.