A Potato Salad Youll Make Again And Again
This recipe is from the mother of a good friend, and thus I originally named this recipe in her honour, calling it Mrs Brodies Potato Salad.
The very first time I heard how Mrs Brodie makes her potato salad, I instantly knew that this was one that would stand out from the crowd of thousands millions of potato salad recipes out there in the world wide web.
The thing that makes this potato salad so special is pouring French Salad Dressing over the hot boiled potatoes. By doing this while the potatoes are hot, they absorb the French Salad Dressing flavour rather than just coating them.
Combined with the creamy mayonnaise dressing, salty bacon, and fresh bursts of celery, cucumber and onion, every mouthful is The Perfect Bite.
Tips For Making Bacon Egg & Potato Salad
Use a variety of potato that stays firm when cooked
Desiree, red pontiac, sebago, red potatoes, yokon gold, round white potatoes, long white potatoes or russet are great options.
Don’t overcook the potatoes
To avoid a mushy salad, only boil the potatoes for 5 minutes.
Bring the water to the boil before adding the potatoes
Adding the potatoes to boiling water ensures that they cook evenly.
Cool the potatoes completely
Drain the potatoes and allow them to cool completely before adding the dressing. If you use the potatoes while they’re still warm, they will soak up the dressing, making the salad mushy.
If you allow your potatoes to cool completely, the dressing will coat the salad perfectly, giving it the best possible taste and texture.
Make the salad a day ahead
If time allows, this salad is best made the day before serving. This allows the flavours to develop overnight.
How To Make Potato Salad
At its most basic, potato salad is boiled potatoes and a dressing. The key to a really good potato salad is to add a generous amount of salt to the water youre using to boil your potatoes.
This is because you have one chance to get your potatoes seasoned all the way to the center, and thats while youre cooking them. It may seem like youre adding a ridiculous amount of salt, but please remember that most of that salt is going to be carried away when you drain the potatoes.
When youre doing boiling the potatoes, I find it best to drain and add a splash of cider or rice vinegar while the potatoes are still warm. This helps the vinegar soak further into the potatoes for flavour.
And while were talking about delivering flavour, I also toss the warm potatoes with the first dose of onions thats going into the potato salad. This takes some of the raw bite out of the onions.
Our potato salad with bacon has two different hits of onion to it. The first is diced sweet onion that is stirred into the still-warm-from-cooking potatoes.
This helps give a little textural interest and pop to the tender potatoes.
The second addition of onions is in the form of sliced, milder green onions. For this, well use the green parts only.
They add both mild onion flavour, and fresh, bright green to our potato salad. Beauty and style thats why I love green onions.
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How To Cook Potatoes For Potato Salad
Traditionally theyre boiled, as they are for this recipe as well. Add all cut potatoes to a pot, cover with water , and bring to a boil over MED-HIGH heat.
Once theyre boiling, adjust the heat so the potatoes are at a low-boil meaning theyre boiling, just not vigorously. The foam created by boiling potatoes can boil over quickly, and its a starchy mess to clean up, so keep an eye on them. Boil about 10-15 minutes, until you can easily pierce one potato piece with a fork.
Creamy Easy Potato Salad
Yall tomorrow is July 4th. Are you ready? I know I am. Ive got all my sides, mains, desserts and cocktails ready to go. All I have to do is buy some fireworks and apply some sunscreen haha because well be out by the pool all day!
On a side note, how they heck are we already a month into summer! Its crazy! I guess time flies when youre having fun, and we definitely have been. I just got back from Mexico celebrating my husbands 40th and in like 10 days we leave for Florida with the kids.
I cant wait for that trip though, it will be our first all together family trip without bringing the parents or meeting family in a long time!
Ok, lets get to the goods shall we? Food! Todays recipe is an old one that I updated slightly and then also gave the photos a facelift. Everyone needs to have a go to classic potato salad recipe on hand, and I guarantee this will be yours!
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What Kind Of Potatoes To Use
I used yellow creamer potatoes from The Little Potato Company . I believe similar potatoes are available in the USA and they’re sometimes referred to as “baby” or “petite” Yukon golds. You don’t need to peel them, and they’re perfect for potato salad. You could definitely use a different variety of potatoes and just cut them into bite-size pieces. I do recommend sticking to red, white, or Yukon Gold potatoes because Russets can fall apart .
How To Make German Potato Salad
Now that we’ve established that German Potato Salad has as many different definitions as there are stars in the sky, this recipe starts out in a pretty standard way. Wash some red potatoes, toss them in a pot of cold water, bring to a boil, add plenty of salt, and simmer until tender.
Then comes the fun part! After draining and setting aside your potatoes, you get to start on the most delicious step frying the bacon!
Once the bacon is cooked, don’t discard that hot bacon grease! Instead, it’s going to form your dressing by stirring in apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, and sugar. After allowing the mixture to simmer for a couple of minutes, you’ll add some minced garlic and then toss your cooked potatoes in the sizzling mixture.
The potatoes soak up all of that bacon-y, vinegar-y, sugary goodness, leaving you with a recipe thats tangy, salty, and sweet all at the same time. Oh, and dont forget to stir in your cooked, crumbled bacon and some fresh chopped parsley before serving. Holy moly, can’t you just taste it???
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Mayonnaise Or Salad Dressing For Potato Salad
Mayonnaise is most definitely my recommendations. I have some very strong feelings about this for my own table, because I do not have a sweet tooth, and salad dressing has sweetness already added to it.
I know that a great many people adore salad dressing, and Ill tell you now, if you love it, substitute it in here. Thats what making your own food is all about making it what you love.
I can honestly tell you that the dressing is perfect as Ive written it made with mayonnaise. I can also tell you that if the presence of salad dressing is crucial to your enjoyment of a potato salad, you should go ahead and use it here.
Instead of the regular mayo plus yellow mustard, we add Dijon mustard. Dijon mustard adds just the right je ne sais quois to the mayo dressing for our tender potatoes, crispy bacon, sweet onions, and green onions.
I love to use Silver Spring Foods Dijon Mustard. It is the secret ingredient that delivers that little kick you expect from Dijon mustard and its from a family owned and operated company right here in the USA- 90 years and running!
Its a simple swap, and not at all exotic, but it makes all the difference between a classic potato salad and something with a little more character. Its familiar, but not ordinary.
I love this potato salad with bacon warm or chilled. If you chill it first, stir, and add a little extra mayonnaise if needed before garnishing and serving.
Potato Salad With Bacon
-Bring 4 quarts of water to a boiling in a large pot high heat. Add 1/4 cup of salt to the water and stir to dissolve. Carefully add the potatoes to the water and return to a boil.
-Boil the potatoes for between 8 and 15 minutes, depending on what size you cut them. Beginning at 8 minutes, use tongs to extract a piece of potato and test for doneness.
Do this until they are tender and easily pierced with a fork, knife, toothpick, or skewer. Drain in a colander, then immediately return to the pan.
-Add vinegar and diced sweet onion to the pan and toss to distribute. Put a tight fitting lid on the pan and refrigerate to bring the potatoes to body temperature.
-Stir in the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, green onions, parsley, chopped hard-boiled eggs, and chopped, crispy bacon. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve warm or chill first.
If you refrigerate it first, stir, and add a little extra mayonnaise if needed before garnishing and serving. Either way, its delicious
-Garnish the potato salad with reserved bacon, hard boiled egg, and green onion. Bon Appetit!
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The Most Delicious Crispy Bacon Potato Salad To Whip Up This Is Our Favorite Side Dish Jord Makes For Bbqs And It Is A Guaranteed Crowd Pleaser
You guys can 100000% thank Jordan for this masterpiece. This recipe had him clicking his heels in the air with pride he was just that excited over how this turned out.
Jord is the king of all things savory. And to be honest he is very very good in the kitchen. So you will be seeing a ton more eats that are either his recipes or stuff we are making together. I know a lot of you noticed this already. And it makes me so happy to hear how much you are loving some of the mcjordO eats baby.
But this CRISPY BACON POTATO SALAD! Make it, eat it, love it and share it with all your potato salad loving friends. The bacon really takes this up 100 levels if you ask me. And it adds the best texture and little crunch to potato salad. Which you all know is key for me to love a recipe. I always need some crunch involved. And the spices and flavors really come together here with the dressing ingredients.
We recommend making this ahead of time if you can. Nothing too crazy maybe a couple hours or so. Just so the flavors really marinate and come together when you serve it.
How To Cook Eggs
I have a great recipe on how to cook hard boiled eggs in Instant Pot. I think its the easiest way to make perfect eggs every single time. If you dont have a Pressure Cooker or want to make them on the stove top, just bring water to boil in a small pot or a sauce pan, transfer the eggs to the pot and cook for 8 minutes. When done, put the eggs in an ice bath to cool off. Then peel and dice them in a bit size pieces.
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Can You Make Potato Salad Ahead Of Time
Absolutely! For instance, you can make this potato salad, cover it in plastic and keep it in your refrigerator until youre ready. The morning of is fine, just give it a good toss before serving to combine the dressing with the potatoes again.
Or if you need to really prep this potato salad ahead of time, like a day or two, just get all the ingredients ready and prepped and store them in a bowl, keeping the dressing separate.
So when youre ready, or a couple of hours before is best, toss the ingredients with the dressing.
Most importantly, let the tossed potato salad sit for a couple of hours in the refrigerator before serving so that the flavors can combine together because its so much better that way!
Also, you can boil the potatoes for this recipe just as you would for a regular potato salad too! Just boil them as you would normally and toss with the creamy BBQ dressing!
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Dill Pickle And Bacon Potato Salad
Thrown together on a whim one night while we were on the road, this Dill Pickle and Bacon Potato Salad has rapidly become our new favorite potato salad.
Filled with plenty of eggs, bacon, and pickle flavor, this potato salad was a kid and adult favorite from the first bite.
Sean and I were craving potato salad, so I picked up potatoes at the store and boiled some eggs along with them. I decided to keep it really simple and we cooked hot dogs to go along with our potato salad.
I was improvising with what I had on hand in the camper and my recipe for Bacon Ranch Potato Salad turned into this Dill Pickle and Bacon Potato Salad. Sean commented that it was really good before I had even tasted it and sure enough this recipe is an absolute keeper.
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Dill Pickle Potato Salad
I made this Dill Pickle and Bacon Potato Salad almost weekly all summer long after that first time and the whole family likes it. This has become the most requested salad I make.
Well, the whole family loves this, with the exception of my youngest who doesnt like POTATOES. How on earth does that happen? Who doesnt like potatoes??? This kid doesnt even love french fries. Sometimes I wonder how he is even my kid.
Bacon Potato Salad
The first time I added bacon to a potato salad it was a game-changer. We all know that bacon + potatoes is almost a guaranteed win, right?
Well, this time, I knew that I wasnt about to cook bacon in the camper. However, I spied the real bacon crumbles at the grocery store and decided to try them in the salad.
I love using bacon crumbles for easy breakfasts and salad toppings, so I figured theyd probably work fine. Sure enough, the bacon crumbles worked great in the potato salad.
Side note: I like to use these bowls when I make this recipe.
Our Favorite Sources For Meat
For years, I’ve been sourcing our meat from Butcher Box. We love this curated meat delivery service, which provides grass-finished beef, heritage breed pork, organic chicken, and more from small farms direct to the customer. You can learn more in my extensive Butcher Box review and unboxing.
More recently, we’ve also become big fans of Cooks Venture for chicken.
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Tips For The Best Potato Salad With Bacon
This is a super versatile recipe! You could swap frozen corn for fresh, arugula for spinach, cilantro for parsley, green onion for red, and so forth. Its a flexible recipe based on what flavors you enjoy most.
Also, dont fret if your potatoes are slightly over cooked. Your potato salad will be a bit more crumbly, but it will still taste delicious.
And if you make this vinegar potato salad ahead of time, be sure to give it a good toss before serving to help redistribute all of that yummy dressing!
The Best Kind Of Potatoes For Potato Salad
Ive found that waxier potatoes seem to hold up better and not be as mushy. Starchy potatoes, like russets, break down a lot when cooked and they can make for a potato salad that is almost like mashed potatoes.
Baby red potatoes, baby Yukon gold, or baby white potatoes are my go-tos. Actually you dont have to get the baby or petite varieties, I just like to because theres less chopping involved!
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How To Avoid A Wet Potato Salad
Since the potatoes are boiled, theyre naturally water-logged. Theres a simple two step process to avoid all that excess water going into your potato salad.
Bacon Potato Salad Recipe Tips:
- I use russet potatoes, but red potatoes or Yukon Gold potatoes could be used instead and they dont have to be peeled.
- For best flavor and seasoning, add salt to the water you boil the potatoes in.
- If you want to make this potato salad spicy, add 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes.
- Will keep in the refrigerator for 4 to 5 days. Cover well with plastic wrap.
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Why We Love This Recipe
Potato salad makes me happy. That sounds basic, maybe. I dont care.
My OG potato salad was a mayonnaisey number from Stecks Delicatessen in Bridgewater, NJ. Id sometimes go with my dad to buy a couple of pounds of it before family parties. At Gratzer parties we didnt just throw a bunch of burgers and dogs onto the grill. You had to declare in advance, publicly, to a man with a note pad and pen, what you wanted. We had some big eaters in the family back then, so it wasnt uncommon to hear an unabashed, Two cheeseburgers and three hot dogs, with buns. You had to declare your buns, too.
Still, everyone seemed to have room for potato salad.
These days I tend to make my own potato salad, and it almost always looks a lot like this one.
- Really good, gold-fleshed, bite-sized potatoes cut in half and boiled in salty water until tender.
- Plenty of crumbled bacon.
- A simple, punchy Champagne vinaigrette.
- Minced shallot.
- And a ton of herbs.
A potato salad like this is super-flavorful but also feels kinda breezy and hot-French-ladyish to toss together. It holds up well on a buffet or at a BBQ/picnic since its mayo-free. What else do you need, my friend?
I first published this recipe here in 2018. I’ve since updated the post for clarity, but the recipe remains the same.