Pesto Potato Salad | Make Ahead Summer Party Recipe

Hi lovelies. Today I've got a recipe that is sure to impress at your next summer potluck, pool party, or barbecue. It's this absolutely incredible pesto potato salad. It's so simple, it only involves a few ingredients, and you can make it ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve it. And it only gets better the longer it sits in the fridge. So to get started, we are going to be mixing up our sauce for this. And the first step is going to be adding some pesto to our bowl. Now I've gone ahead and used some store-bought pesto here. I will be honest with you, store-bought pesto is just so easy. I simply can't resist it. You could always make homemade pesto. It's actually really easy to do. If you want to try your hand at homemade pesto, I will leave a link in the description box below if you want to give it a try. Now to my pesto sauce, I'm going to be adding a couple heaping tablespoons of mayonnaise. Now if you wanted to skip the mayonnaise here, I know some of you are not fans, you could go ahead and just add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to this. Just helps your pesto go a little further in your potato salad. But of course, mayonnaise is classic. And then for just a little bit of added tartness and tanginess, we're going to go in here with the juice of one lemon. And then I'm just going to season this up with some salt and some pepper. And honestly guys, that's it. This is going to be glorious. We're going to give this a quick whisk and then we'll set it aside while we assemble our potato salad. Just the smell of this mixture alone is worth writing home about. Is there honestly anything pesto can't do? So good. Now the base for this potato salad, not surprisingly of course, is some potatoes. So here I use some baby gem potatoes that I just cut into quarters. I cooked them until they were just tender. You don't want to overcook your potatoes because what you'll end up with is basically mashed potatoes and that's not sort of what we're going for. I also love leaving the skins on my potatoes because not only do you get great texture, but you also get great color and there's tons of great fiber there as well. Now that my potatoes have cooled completely, I'm going to go ahead and pour over our amazing sauce. So our pesto, mayo, and lemon sauce with lots of salt and lots of pepper. It's headed right in here. I'm also going to add some freshly grated Parmesan cheese to this. So you know that pesto, one of its key flavors is Parmesan. So good. And then finally, for a little bit of crunch and added flavor, I've got one shallot that I've minced up really fine. You could use some red onion here instead or green onion if you have those on hand. Really, any type of onion will do in this recipe. Just adds another bit of flavor. And then we're just going to toss this all together and it's really as simple as that. Once this is all mixed together, you can let it hang out in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve it. Just before serving, I highly recommend adding a nice sprinkle of freshly chopped basil to it. Of course, fresh basil is one of the best flavors of summer, so let's just say there is tons to love here. And you have got the most amazing potato salad. Everyone is going to love it. This salad is so flavorful. It's rich, it's creamy, and it comes together with just a few ingredients. I hope you guys will give it a try for yourselves. And if you do, be sure to tweet me, Instagram me, or Facebook me a photo because you know how much I love seeing your kitchen creations. Remember, this recipe, like all of my recipes, is featured on healthymealplans.com, our amazing meal planning site that allows you to browse more than 1,000 recipes, drag and drop them into your weekly meal plan, and then automatically generates your grocery list for the week. Come on, guys, what could be easier? Thank you, as always, so much for watching. And finally, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe because there is lots more deliciousness where this came from.