Creamy Potato Salad

0:00It's time for a recipe of the day. Today in honor of my mom, I am making one of the recipes that is just so dear to me. It is one of my favorites that she makes. She's been making it for as long as I remember. It is for the creamiest best potato salad out there. We had it growing up. My parents used to serve it at their deli. There are always big containers of it in the deli coolers. And like when my parents would say, oh, go grab what you want to take home for dinner, I would always get a container of that potato salad. And now when I go to visit my parents, my mom makes it and I'm super excited. And when they were here recently, she made a big batch as well. So it is just a delicious, wonderful recipe. I'm going to say right off the bat, there are no hard boiled eggs in this potato salad recipe. I didn't grow up with them in potato salad that my mom made. Some of my other relatives did put it and I was always a little surprised to see them there. My mom does put the hard boiled eggs in this sometimes now, but I haven't had it yet.

1:05She says this batch, three to four hard boiled eggs peeled and roughly chopped is perfect. If you want to add those in there, the other things that you might think are missing from this potato salad are celery and relish. And there is good reason for both of those omissions. So I said this was the creamiest potato salad. I actually think part of why it's so creamy is because there isn't a lot of stuff going on. And so you really experience the pure creaminess of the dressing and the soft potatoes, right? So you don't have crunchy things like celery for sure or like clumpy things like the relish. So if you want to add celery, you can and you can add two ribs of finely chopped celery. That is up to you, but it's not in the original recipe. As to the relish, I'm rather huge fan of relish. Generally, I do buy a dill pickle relish that I really like. I still don't think I would put it in here. I think it adds like a bit of a sweetness to the salad and I like it more just a little creamy and salty and tangy. So that is what's going on with the things you might think are missing.

2:07I still think you should try this because it is just so delicious. One other thing I will say about this recipe is you will find that it makes more dressing for the potatoes than you need or at least that you think you need at first. And that is on purpose. Now, whether you make this potato salad or a different potato salad, this is a really important tip to know. Potatoes will continue to soak up moisture for as long as they are sitting in the dressings. If you make your potato salad today and you're serving it at a potluck tomorrow and it's in the fridge that whole time, that entire time the potatoes are soaking up dressing. So you taste it today. It's perfect. You cover it and you put it in the fridge. Then you put it out for your guests. It's actually not going to be as good. You might not realize that you might not remember it, but it's a little bit drier. The potatoes have soaked up the dressing. They're more flavored inside because they've got no that dressing in there, but the outsides of them are drier. And I've actually done a video of this. It is not up yet, but you can actually see how the potatoes have sucked up the dressing over time.

3:09It's really interesting. So what I do when I make potato salad is I always make extra dressing. And then I refrigerate the made potato salad and I refrigerate the extra dressing in a sealed container. And then when it comes time to serve it, I stir in another couple of tablespoons of dressing just to recode the outsides of the potatoes. So every time that I go to serve this, if it's in the fridge for a couple days, we're having it with different meals or whatever. I'm adding a little bit of dressing each time and there is enough for that. The other great thing though is that this dressing keeps in the fridge for a couple of weeks in a sealed container because it's all things that stay in the refrigerator really good anyhow. And so you can make this batch. And if you don't get through all of it, cook up some more potatoes, toss it with the dressing, or it's really great. It's like a coleslaw dressing with some shredded cabbage, or you could also do it with pasta. If you have leftover cooked pasta, toss it with some of this dressing and you've got an instant delicious pasta salad. So the dressing will not go to waste, I promise. Okay, how do you make this potato salad?

4:09You're starting with three pounds of potatoes that you've peeled and cut into one half to three quarter inch chunks. And they are going into a pot that just fits them with like two inches of space above. Then you add enough cold water to fully cover them, during two teaspoons of salt, and bring that up to a boil over high heat partially covered, and then stir it, and then once it's boiling, take the lid off, reduce it to a simmer, and cook until the potatoes are just fork tender, probably four to five more minutes. Then get a big colander and drain those potatoes, and keep the potatoes in the colander, and put the colander over your pot to the pot they cooked in. And let them sit there for 10 or 15 minutes. Give them a gentle shake every now and then. You want them to dry off, but more importantly, you want them to cool down enough that they're not going to melt the dressing ingredients, but not cool down fully, because you actually do want them to soak up some of this dressing to flavor the inside to the potatoes, and they will do that best if they are slightly warm. So I find 10 to 15 minutes, chills them down a little bit, they're just at room temperature, it just brings them down a little bit,

5:10but still a little bit warm. Okay, now while those potatoes are cooling off a little bit, you can make the dressing. So in a large bowl, you're going to stir together, one in three quarters of a cup of mayonnaise, two and a half teaspoons of yellow mustard, a third of a cup of white vinegar, just plain old vinegar, and a third of a cup of vegetable oil, as well as one and a half teaspoons of salt, whisk that together, and then transfer the dressing to a jar or container that has a tight-fitting lid, and then put those potatoes that are slightly warm still into that big bowl that you mixed the dressing in, don't need to dirty another bowl, and then you're going to pour over about half of the dressing, give it a stir, the potato should be well coated in dressing, if not, you can add a little bit more, and it should be nice and creamy, and then you stir in two cups of chopped green onions. I love the green onion in here, a little bit of fresh bite, really nice. And I'll just say, I don't really know why, but sometimes I find that green onion

6:10that is in some kind of marinade or salad or something starts to get a bit slimy after a couple of days, it doesn't seem to happen in here, I don't know why, but it turns out just great, it stays good for days in the fridge, so don't worry about that. Now if you were going to add any egg or celery, you would add it at the same time as the green onions. Like I said, three to four hard boiled eggs, peeled and roughly chopped, and or two ribs of celery that you have finely chopped. Then you can serve that potato salad immediately, but I do like it cold, so cover and refrigerate it so that it's nice and chilled, and then you can serve it if that's within like a couple of hours, it'll be good just like that. But you know, give it a taste, it might need a little bit more dressing already, then you would add those two tablespoons of dressing, give it another stir, make sure all the potatoes are nice and coated in creamy and dig in. I will put the link to this recipe in the show notes for this podcast episode, or you can head to cookthestory.com slash ROTD and get it there, or find it in our Facebook group, Facebook.com slash groups slash recipeOTD.

7:13And hey, just a quick note, I'm on a recording hiatus right now, so for the next little while, I'm replaying episodes from the archives, including this one. If you heard me mention a holiday a season or something going on in my life that seemed a bit off, that's why. Thanks so much for listening, and I hope you're enjoying these older episodes. I am Christine Pittman from cookthestory.com, thecookful.com, cookfortwo.os, and from this podcast, recipe of the day, I hope you have a great day. Let's get cooking.