Best Potato Salad Recipes

"Pray for peace and grace and spiritual food,
For wisdom and guidance, for all these are good,
but don't forget the potatoes." ~ John Tyler Pettee in "Prayer and Potatoes".

Potatoes are undoubtedly one of the best creations of God and I am yet to taste another more versatile food item. You can breakfast, snack, lunch and dine on potatoes and each time you shall be satiated to the fullest. Personally, I can never have enough potatoes. It's amazing how you can do just anything to this otherwise bland and colorless root and almost never go wrong with it.

Let's take a salad for instance. Talk to any chef from any part of the globe and they will tell you how difficult it is to actually come up with a perfect salad dressing. Everything has to be just right to bring out the flavor of every ingredient in this apparently easy to prepare dish.

Even in such a case potatoes conveniently take on all the aromas and tastes that they are expected to in salads of varied genres - be it in cold potato salads or German potato salad recipes. They are the most complying vegetables ever, with no particular flavor of their own.

It was probably for this effortless versatility of potatoes that England's monarch, Henry IV's favorite salad was one with diced boiled potatoes with sardines and herb dressing.

While eating it, I am sure that the thought of potatoes being a foreign food item that traveled from North America to Europe thanks to the Spanish conquistadors to never have crossed his mind.

So, here are some of the best potato salad recipes for you to try out as you ponder on the fact that unlike soy sauce which gives a Chinese touch to food and oregano leaves that Italian taste in the palette, potato becomes that very country's in which it is being cooked!

Ingredients:

• Thin-skinned potato, 200 g
• Red bell pepper, 20 g (diced)
• Celery, 10 g (sliced)
• Leek, 1 (minced)
• Honey, ¼ teaspoon
• Dijon mustard, ¼ teaspoon
• Salt and pepper, to taste

This potato recipe requires you to begin by scrubbing the potatoes and cutting them into cubes. Do not peel off the skin. Then put them to steam. In the meanwhile, mix the bell pepper, celery, leek, honey, and mustard in another vessel. Sprinkle a dash of salt and freshly crushed black pepper on the mixture.

Now remove the potatoes from the stove when they are cooked but not soft and squishy. Drain the water and put the firm potatoes in the bowl of mixture. Toss enough to blend everything and serve. It is really that easy a delicacy to concoct!

Ingredients:

• Potatoes, ½ kg (not peeled)
• Parsley, ⅔rd of a cup (shredded)
• Leek, ⅔rd of a cup (minced)
• Almonds, ⅓rd of a cup (slivered and toasted at 180° C for 10 minutes)
• White wine vinegar, 50 ml
• Tarragon, 2½ tablespoons (crushed)
• Olive oil, ½ a cup
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Wash the potatoes very well and then bring them to a boil in salt water. When they become soft, drain the water and allow them to dry. Peel and cut them into cubes and keep aside. Now mix the parsley, leek, vinegar and tarragon with the help of the olive oil and sprinkle some salt and pepper on top. Place the potato cubes in the mixture and toss well.

Allow it to stand undisturbed for about 45 minutes and then add the golden-brown almonds. You will have to make this salad a little in advance as after the almonds are added, you have to place a lid on it and store it in a cool, dry place for a minimum of 3 hours. After that it is ready to be served.

Ingredients:

• Potatoes, 16 oz. (boiled)
• Dill, 2 teaspoons (shredded)
• Eggs, 3 (hard-boiled and quartered)
• Onion, 2 tablespoons (minced)
• Celery, ¼th of a cup
• Sour cream, ¼th of a cup
• Red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon
• Dijon mustard, 1 tablespoon
• Olive oil, ¼th of a cup
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Cube the potatoes and keep aside. Now, mix the cream, vinegar, mustard, onions, eggs and potatoes with the help of the oil. Toss for a while and then add the dill and the celery and toss again. Finally add a dash of salt and pepper and voila! You're done with this recipe for creamy potato salad.

Ingredients:

• Red potatoes, 2 pounds (new, cleaned, and scrubbed)
• Eggs, 6 (boiled, peeled, cubed)
• Bacon, 1 pound (fried and crumbled)
• Celery, 1 stalk (finely chopped)
• Onion, 1 (finely chopped)
• Mayonnaise, 2 cups
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Make this salad for around 12 people by first boiling all the potatoes in salt water for maximum 15 minutes in a lidded pan. Once the potatoes are cooked, drain the water and refrigerate. Once cooled, remove them from the fridge and then cut into small cubes.

Do not remove the skin of the potatoes. Now, throw in the potato cubes, bacon bits, eggs, celery and onion into a large bowl and toss well. Then pour in the mayo and sprinkle the salt and pepper from top.

Toss the entire thing again till the veggies are well caked with the mayo. Chill for 60 minutes and then serve. Each serving will have approximately 430 calories and 133 grams of cholesterol. To this, you can add about 3 tablespoons of sweet green relish, a few tomato wedges, half a cup of cubed, grilled chicken pieces and some dill to garnish, if you wish.

Ingredients:

• Idaho potatoes, 3 lbs. (peeled, diced, boiled until cooked but firm, drained and chilled)
• Eggs, 6 (large, boiled, 4 diced and 2 longitudinally sliced)
• Miracle Whip, 1 - 1½ cups
• Sweet gherkins or relish, 1 cup (diced)

• Sweet onion, 1 cup (finely diced)
• Celery, ½ a cup (finely diced)
• Mustard, ¼th of a cup
• Pimento, ¼th of a cup (diced)
• Sugar, ¼th of a cup
• Salt, 1 tablespoon
• Pepper, 1 tablespoon
• Paprika, 1 teaspoon

Throw in all the ingredients, barring the 2 sliced eggs and the paprika, into a large bowl and toss till everything gets commingled thoroughly. You will need to be careful so that you do not end up mashing the potato bits.

Refrigerate for a minimum of two hours before serving. Place the sliced eggs on the salad just before serving and mizzle the paprika from top.

Potato salads are simply delicious and are most fun to eat during the summers. Annually, one single person in the US consumes about 125 pounds of this distant relative of tomato and tobacco on an average. So, season your palette with more potato delicacies by trying out these delectably best potato salad recipes.