Food Network Chefs' Top Potato Salad Recipe Videos

We're doing bacon and egg potato salad. Yeah. So, potatoes wise, right? Usually as cooks, we're always looking for starchy potatoes, because you want kind of that creaminess. This is one place you can actually use a waxy potato. So, fingerlings, reds, any of those waxier potatoes. So bring your potatoes up salted, cold water, and that's the way to play. Another ingredient I want you to put in your arsenal or your pantry is slab bacon. Slab. Yeah, right? Total cook's thing. Everyone uses thin sliced bacon. Slab bacon, not cut. So, I can make these perfect little like bacon bites, lardons, whatever you want to call them. And you can just pick that up at the butcher, right? Yeah, yeah. And if you don't have slab bacon, don't freak out. Still make this recipe. Well, and they have now center cut bacon for us home cooks at National Brands. So, it's not as thick, but it's getting thicker than the regular. It is. It's getting better, isn't it? The bacon comes up nice and slow, right? Do you put butter or water in yours? You know what? I don't personally. I maybe a little pan spray or just a touch of oil, like just to get the pan started. Because look at all that fat we get to render once you slow start. So, that's the bacon and that's the potatoes. Now, let's get over to the flavor part of this recipe. Let's get into it. Let's do it. So, we're going to make our dressing. We have our Greek yogurt first in a bowl. You want your bowl as big as the whole potato salad. So, you can just pour your potatoes right in there. We're going to add a little bit of red wine vinegar. We're going to get fancy pants here with some whole grain mustard. Oh, got to have it in a potato salad. He likes to go fancy once in a while. Pinkies up the whole deal. A little bit of red onion. That's a lot and I like it. Yeah, I like it too. Like that. A little sugar. Balances it all out. And of course, your salt and pepper, because you want to always remember to season every layer. And how long did you cook those potatoes? These potatoes are going to go for about 8 to 14 minutes. Again, coming up slow. Once you cook the potatoes, you want to drain them really well and then let them cool on a sheet pan before you use them. Get your potatoes cut in larger pieces and you want to get them in while they're warm. Because of the starches in the potatoes are nice and still kind of soft, it's going to pick up all that flavor, especially if you have a vinegar in your potato salad. And that's the way to go. And I'm not mad if you take... So, you've got the potato and you've got the bacon. And I'm not mad. And here's a little tip. Like, because we're using Greek yogurt, you know what? We can make it up with a little bacon fat. And then you got eggs coming in there too? Yeah, exactly. Take your eggs, cold start them in water. Once the water comes up to a boil, shut it off. When the water is cool enough to the touch, that egg is perfectly boiled. Oh, that's one I haven't heard before. Creamy. Oh, perfect. If you just start cold starting some of the items that you're cooking, you have more control over them. And they actually cook a lot more evenly. Got it. Let me plate that up for you guys, team. And then I'm going to make sure everyone gets a little taste here. It's a really beautiful roasted potato. Herbaceous potato salad with bacon. I started cutting my potatoes. I'm just going to finish these up real quick. Any kind of potato would do. Just make sure that they are uniform when you cut them. And then that way they will all cook at the same time. All right, potatoes. I'm going to drizzle them with some extra virgin olive oil. I'm going to put in a four finger pinch of salt, little bit of cracked black pepper. So this way, just one less pan. I could cook these right in this foil packet. Potatoes are going to go in the middle. And then we're just going to start bundling this up on all four sides to seal it like so. We're going to put in some water. And this is going to help these potatoes steam as they cook. And then I'm going to put them right over the direct heat on the grill. These are going to take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the size. It's a little hotter back there. So I'm going to put them there. I love bacon in my potato salad. So we're going to cut up this thick bacon into like large dice or large lardoons. And I'm going to add these to a pan. I've had this pan going over the heat the entire time. I'm putting a little oil in the pan. And that's just to kind of start the bacon so it's crispy. We're just going to cook this bacon until it's nice and crispy. So I'm putting it in the hot pan. You could hear the sizzle there. Remember, we are cooking it crispy. All right. What do you got going? Well, I'm going to start on the dressing for the potato salad. OK. So it's just a basic mayonnaise based dressing. So I've got my mayonnaise in the bowl. I'm going to put some apple cider vinegar, a little bit of mustard, like, you know, a teaspoon or so. And the Dijon, you know, it just gives it a little brightness. A little acidity. Exactly. Do you want a zest? I know how you like to zest. Oh, you know, I'm a zester from way back. I know. And then I'm just going to squeeze it. OK. A little salt and pepper. So see, I like yours because it's loose. It is. It's a very loose sort of dressing. So look at these. So they've been going for about 20 something minutes, but they're nice and tender. The liquid has evaporated. They're seasoned. Oh, they're nice and hot. Yeah, they still have good temperature. I'm going to pop them in there. No potato left behind. Now we're going to put all these herbs and celery. I have scallion, parsley, dill, and celery. I love a little crunch. That looks amazing. And then when those herbs get in there. To that, we're going to add our crunchy bacon. Scallions, celery, parsley, dill, everybody in the pool. OK. So Lizzie, look at how beautiful and herbaceous this potato salad is. Turned a lovely color. Right? It's creamy, but not overly creamy. It's nice and tangy too. It's perfect. All right, so we're going to make a grilled potato salad here with a vinaigrette made out of lemon juice, some Dijon mustard. We're going to put some goat cheese in there as well. But let's make the dressing. OK, the first thing I'm going to do before I forget is before I cut the lemons to get the juice out, I'm going to use a zester and harvest some of the zest off of the outside of the lemon. I always like to say, you buy a lemon, you get zest for free. And there's tons of flavor in the zest. And get the juice. Some Dijon mustard. These are ingredients you're going to find even in your everyday supermarket. Some lemon. I'm going to add just a tiny bit of honey, just to kind of balance out the mustard and the vinegar. Slowly add some olive oil. We're going to put the potatoes on the grill in just a second. It's good to have the vinaigrette ready so that you can actually dress it while the potatoes are still warm. We'll just make the potato salad that much better. Chop up some fresh tarragon. And I like the idea of sort of reinforcing the tarragon from the chicken to the potatoes. Remember, we have the tarragon in our salsa verde as well. Some salt and pepper. Let's give this a taste. Very nice. A little more olive oil. It's pretty lemony. It's not a bad thing. All right, we're going to get our potatoes going. All right, so these potatoes I par-cooked for about eight minutes. So the one thing about a gas grill, especially for somebody that doesn't have a lot of experience cooking chicken outside, we know that the heat is going to be even and consistent. A charcoal grill, you're probably going to get more flavor from the charcoal itself, but it's a little bit harder to control. All right, so I'm going to cut my potatoes up in quarters. We're going to get a nice char on the potatoes. Make sure that they're cooked all the way through. But we're going to put them in this basket so that they're easy to kind of get off the grill. And that's the key. If you put these on individually, you're bound to lose a few. OK, so I'm going to put these back in the bowl for just a second. A little canola oil. Some salt and pepper. Just to grill the potatoes. We can put them right into our grill basket. Make sure they're evenly distributed. Pop them on the grill. That simple. Nice crusty potatoes. And we have our dressing. What I like to do always is I like to actually dress the potatoes while they're still warm with the dressing. So it's really important to keep the dressing sort of at the ready. All right, so I'm going to add a little goat cheese and some arugula to this. The goat cheese has that pungent goat flavor but also gives it some creaminess. A little salt and pepper. And we're just going to fold it one time. Otherwise, we're going to wilt the arugula too much and the goat cheese will actually get a little messy as well. There we go. Beautiful potato salad. Started by boiling some small yellow potatoes until they were just starting to get tender. And then I cut them in half. So they've already started cooking. We don't have to worry about grilling them from the raw state. And then I'm going to sprinkle in plenty of salt. We got to have salt on our potatoes. And pepper. I'm going to keep tossing these until the potatoes are totally coated. And then I'm going to throw them on the grill pan, grill them till they're nice and brown, and then take them off the pan. All right, this is looking yummy. Those look good. Yeah. I would just eat those how they are. Okay. All right, Alex. Look at the grilled potatoes. And you can imagine if you use like an outdoor grill, they can really get some great color on them. I kind of stopped short and I stuck with the golden brown type of grill marks. So I'm going to make the dressing for the grilled potato salad. And the whole point is you want to make the dressing and toss the potatoes while they are still nice and hot. So it's a creamy dressing and it starts with mayonnaise and sour cream. And then I've got some buttermilk and a whole bunch of yummy things to add. Worcestershire, some vinegar, and some hot sauce. And then in the herb realm, I've got some fresh dill and a bunch of chopped fresh chives. I love herby creamy dressings. Enter ranch. I love ranch dressing. I love it more and more. Okay, so look out. This is pretty much kind of a creamy, spicy ranch. Really delicious. The other thing about the potato salad is that I'm going to use cool veggies. So I'm going to add some chopped onions and some chopped red bell pepper. And the star of the show, it even overshadows the potatoes, chopped bacon. And then I'll sort of give it a little toss. And then you just take the dressing and pour it over. And I usually stop short and kind of add about three quarters of the dressing until I toss everything together. And then I can kind of judge if it needs more or not. So just toss away. How yummy is this? Actually, that's really good. Not only is the dressing delicious, but those grill marks on the potatoes add such amazing flavor. Okay, so then a little more herbs. I think that was the perfect amount of dressing. This is gorgeous, guys. Now the key is to make this early in the day or the day before you need it. And then cover it and pop it in the fridge and let it cool with all the dressing. I'm telling you what, this potato salad is going to change your life. Now let's go to the potatoes. Now the potatoes, let's talk about these. I had them in here. I put them into a cold pot of water. Add a little bit of salt. I want to cook them about three quarters of the way. Oh, perfect. Wow, really hot. You're seeing big bite. I burn my mouth all the time. I'm going to strain them. Bring these up. Shake them off. Get that excess water off of there because we want them to be dry when they go into that fat. Potatoes look dry enough that I can put them into the hot fat. Terms that I love to use, you know, dropping the potatoes into the hot fat. Now look at this. Let's see how much fat I've got. Now this is a pretty good bacon that I used, but how much oil do I really have? Do I have enough to fry and put a nice crisp on the potatoes? I think I'm going to add a little bit more vegetable oil to it, but all that flavor down inside there. Okay, and that'll give me enough so it can fry on one side. I'll be able to flip them over. So gently and carefully test it first. Nice sizzle and down. Now you're saying fried potatoes and bacon. I dig it. But what else? What's going to make it so great? I'm going to put some capers in there. We're going to have a little Dijon. You wait till you see what goes on. You will never settle for regular old boiled cold potato salad again. Now shopping. I need a couple things for this German potato salad. Some Dijon and some capers and some raisins because it's going to go with these chops in a second. So there we are. Little onions going to go into the salad. I'm going to watch that heat, man. This thing just cranks. So nice to see a big pan like that. I don't see a bunch of steam. I see the steaming that you see coming off there from its cooking. But so many times you'll cram everything. We go like, I'll put a fifth chop right there. Not where you want to go. Big chop on the onion. Put that in with the potatoes. And I'm only going to kind of let them get, you know, just a little bit warm. Just kind of get some of that fat on them. Let them break up. I want to see the color. I want to get some of that texture. I want to get some of that bite from the onion. A little bit of capers also. See if I can just shake a few out. There you go. And this is going to add some nice saltiness to it, that brine on the capers. And then here's the piece where it all starts to come together. Well, how does it become potato salad, guy? Well, the idea is I put a little of this Dijon in here. So what do I got? I got some Dijon. But you know, before I do that, let me hit it with a little bit of the red wine vinegar. Kind of deglaze some of that flavor off the bottom. There we go. And you can see it start to pull off some of the flavor right off there. Starts to almost clean the pan for you. Now I'll make myself a little landing spot. Add in about a tablespoon of Dijon mustard. And this is going to make my vinaigrette right here for my potato salad. Okay. Excellent. I'll kind of toss this. There we go. Back in with the bacon. And I'm going to let this just sit here and hold warm because it is warm German potato salad. Fried German potato salad, guy style. I'm making potato salad. I'm using fingerling potatoes, the rainbow ones. Cut these into about like inch or so, three quarter of an inch slices. And we're going to start it in a cold pot of water here that is aggressively salted. Okay. And then we're going to bring it up to a simmer. Cook it till it's fork tender. So we are going to drain this quickly into a bowl. A little white distilled vinegar. Directly on that while it's hot. It's all beautiful. Give it a nice little toss. I like a creamy potato salad. So we got some mayonnaise in here. Dijon. Some gabers. Yeah, I like chopping them a little bit. And then of course the pesto. Lemon juice. First a little lemon zest directly into that base. Warm to room temp. Room temp warm, right? Cold. I mean, I like both of them. Oh man, tell me you don't want it. So here we're going to kind of, this is like, this is beautiful. That is whoa. Hand blown glass bowl here. Jalapeno kettle chips. You know what that'd be great with? A little bratwurst or like a... Talk about it. Grilled sausage. A little bratwurst, knockwurst, anything. So the crunch on top of the creamy potato with the pesto mix in here. Jeff, this is delicious. So I've boiled two pounds of potatoes. I like to mix the white and the red potatoes. And what I'm going to do is just slice these really thickly. These are almost done. And then what I'm going to do while it's still warm, this gives it so much flavor, is about two tablespoons. Put a nice splash of white wine. You can use leftover wine from dinner last night. And a splash of chicken stock. And while the potatoes are still warm, it really gets into the potatoes. Big spoon, just toss it all together. Some salt and pepper. The potatoes just have as much flavor as possible before you start. So that's the potatoes. And the next thing I'm going to make is the vinaigrette. So the key ingredients for a good vinaigrette are good vinegar and good olive oil. I'm going to do... This is champagne vinegar. But if you have good cider vinegar or white wine vinegar, it's great. I just wouldn't use red wine vinegar for this. And then I'm going to add about a half a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. And salt and pepper. For some reason, I think Americans are really sort of daunted by vinaigrette. It's the easiest thing in the world. And so much better than that bottled stuff you get. And then slowly pour good olive oil into this. And you make an emulsion. The mustard seems to emulsify the vinaigrette, so it stays together. Kind of like I'm making a mayonnaise. Just do the olive oil slowly. Great. So this is going to go on the potatoes. Just to flavor them. And that's all going to soak into those warm potatoes. And the rest I'm going to save for later. And now the last thing is lots of fresh herbs. And that's what gives the potatoes such a fresh flavor. So we have chopped scallions. Chop them already. Give them another rough cut. I really like when they're roughly cut. I don't like them to be so precision-like that you don't actually see what it is. It just gives you a sense that there are scallions in it. Look how gorgeous this looks. And fresh basil. Just take the leaves off. And you can either do this with a rough chop, or you can do it julienne. But I think I'm just going to do it roughly chopped. OK. Lots of fresh basil. And then fresh dill. It's a great way to take leaves off the dill. It's just run your knife along and takes all those leaves off without pulling them off one by one. And then the longer this soaks in the fridge and the longer it sits, the better it tastes. Potatoes are really tender, but they're still firm enough so they have flavor. You could use a little more salt. That's my motto. It always needs more salt. A little more pepper. Bring out the flavors. And it's going to be just delicious. Pomp T.C.'s potato salad. I'm going to go ahead and let you start cutting the potatoes. OK. I can do that. In the meantime, I'm going to go ahead and cut the bell pepper and onions. So I've cooked 10 pounds of red potatoes and I let it cool. I am cutting up these bell peppers. I like to dice them kind of small, you know, so every little bite of potato salad, you can actually have some peppers in there. Mm, you got some nice uniform pieces. OK. Actually, what I'm going to do, I'm going to put those peppers in here. OK. Keep cutting that. OK. I've never had potato salad that tastes as good as hers. I mean, she is like the salad queen. She can cook her behind off. OK. Now, what's the secret in your potato salad? Why can't my potato salad taste like this? Well, Cartier, you know, at my age, I got what you call old love. That means that there is no recipe for this stuff. You just make up what you do and you go along with it. And, you know, even when my grandmother used to make the potato salad, it was just the potato, mayonnaise, and the eggs, a little salt and pepper. But as the years go by, you know, we start adding different things in there. You know what? You have to learn how to make mistakes in order to get what you really want to do right. How many eggs you got? I have a dozen of eggs. Oh, OK. And you leave the yolk in, right? I sure do. You want to leave the yolk in. Oh, is that the secret ingredient? Cartier keep cutting. All righty, now that you've got those potatoes cut, here's what we're going to do. Look at my grandmother. She is ready for the reunion. Yes, she is. Jo is bringing the fashion. Oh, my goodness. Everybody is so excited. Oh, my gosh. They're showing me their outfits. And it's going to look like I'm adding like a lot of mayonnaise. But the reason why I'm adding so much mayonnaise is because we have a lot of potatoes. Looks about like three cups. A little bit of garlic in here. This is some onion powder. Don't need a whole lot. And I love smoked paprika. So now, and here's some salt. Don't want to add too much salt. Let's put some pepper in. I'm going to stir all this up here. I like the way Ontisi uses another bowl to mix ingredients to make sure that it comes together equally and so it's evenly distributed throughout the potatoes. Is there anything I can help you with? I can sit back and watch. You know what I want you to do? I want you to grab the mustard. Let's open up this mustard. Because we're going to, in just a minute, we're going to squirt some of that mustard in here. All right. So in Southern potato salad, we like to use mustard. Now, there's variations of potato salad. You can do a red potato salad with just sour cream, a little bit of chives. But in the South, we are known for using mustard in our potato salad. Am I right? Yeah. OK. And what we're going to do, we're going to dump all this stuff in the potato. That's going to taste real good. What I'm going to do, because, you know, everybody's a little greedy when they come. I'm going to put a couple of little bowls to the side for myself. You know, it always tastes better the next day. Well, Cardi, you know, we do have a lot of people coming. And they won't know what's missing. So I'm going to add this. I'll give it about maybe three spoons. And that is sweet. Yeah, I love, I love the sweet. The sweet taste. I love it. So we got to get it in a decorative bowl. Even though this potato pot is cute. And here's the little bit that we left behind for you. Scrape. Now, here's what I like to do. Mold that really good together right there. Like that. And we're looking at serving this thing right here. Isn't that pretty? So we're going to just sprinkle a little paprika on top. Your cake, cake spoon. I'm ready to party. Yes, you are. That's Aunt TC's potato salad. How you like me now? Too cute. You are too cute. Perfect potato salad. I've got five pounds of russet potatoes. I scrubbed them really, really clean, because I don't like peeling potatoes. And I'm just putting them into a pot. And I'm going to bring these to a boil and cook them until they're fork tender. Now, I'm going to put hard-boiled eggs in my potato salad, because it's one of my very favorite potato salad ingredients. To hard-boiled eggs, I just put them in a saucepan, covered them with water, brought it to a boil. Then I turned off the heat and let them sit in the hot water for about 20 minutes or so. And now I'm going to grab some ice and finish them off. I just put ice into the pan. That'll help them cool down really quickly. All right, I'm going to let the eggs chill, the potatoes cook. And then I'll move forward with the potato salad. The potatoes are all tender. And I've been processing them with a food mill. OK, got all those through. Now I'll add all the wonderful ingredients. About a cup and a half of mayonnaise. And then about a fourth a cup of mustard. You can use Dijon if you'd like, but I like the bright yellow stuff. Kind of classic. All right, and then plenty of salt. And then I like to add some paprika, too. Just add some nice flavor, a little bit of color. Now the things I like to add in. Five green onions. And I'll just slice them pretty thin. I'm going to hold back a little bit of each ingredient, and I'll use them for garnish. All right, now I've got the hard-boiled eggs. I got them all peeled. And I'll just slice them up. OK, now I'll put in most of the eggs. All right, now I'll crack open a jar of pickles. Who doesn't love pickles? First thing I'm going to do is drizzle in some of the pickle juice. Hoping all the pickles don't come pouring out. Dump out about eight or 10 pickles. And then I'll slice these up for the potato salad. They add such a yummy crunch. All right, throw those in there. Then the last thing is a little bit of fresh dill. OK, and now it's just about mixing it all together. Smush and mush, that's my technique I use. That just looks perfect. My assistant Barbara's son, Jason, is getting married. And she's giving the rehearsal dinner while she was having a complete meltdown. So I said, OK, deep breath. We're going to do this together. You're going to go out and buy some really wonderful things in town that you can serve as a buffet. And you and I are going to make some delicious things to go with it. So first, I'm making tarragon potato salad. And she's out shopping. So first, I'm just going to test them, make sure they're really done. And I just use a cake tester, a skewer. OK, no resistance, exactly right. I'm going to drain them. I'll show you what I do. I have a little secret about this. So this is two pounds of Yukon gold potatoes. I boil these for about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the potatoes. And what I'm going to do is I drain them and then take a nice clean kitchen towel. Got to be clean. And put it right over the top. And just let them steam for about 10 minutes. And the steam gets in the potatoes and they end up perfectly cooked. So in the meantime, I'm going to make the dressing. Most potato salads are so boring. They're like potatoes and mayonnaise with maybe a little salt if you're lucky. I just think they can be really flavorful. I add lots of fresh herbs like tarragon and dill. I start with one cup of mayonnaise. You don't have to make your own. Two tablespoons of lemon juice. I like a little bit of acid in things like this. It just gives it an edge that really gives it lots of flavor. This is a small lemon, so it should be perfect. Two tablespoons of tarragon vinegar. If you don't have tarragon vinegar, any good white wine vinegar is fine. Don't go out and buy a whole bottle of tarragon vinegar for two tablespoons. Two teaspoons of salt. Remember, this is the dressing and potatoes are fairly bland. So you want them to have lots of flavor. One teaspoon of pepper. And just give it a whisk together. And then I'm going to add tarragon, fresh dill, red onion, scallions. It's going to have a really good flavor. So these potatoes are just cool enough to handle. I actually love to put the dressing on a potato salad while the potatoes are still warm because it really absorbs better. Two pounds of potatoes. All done. Okay, into a bowl. And remember, you want to do this while they're still a little bit warm. This isn't the time to go answer the phone. Okay, enough dressing just to moisten it. Give it a big stir. And see, when you toss it, it breaks up a little bit. So you don't want to make them too small to start with. Okay, next, three tablespoons of chopped scallions, just right into the salad. Three tablespoons of minced onions. And then some fresh herbs to give it a really fresh flavor. So I'm going to use dill and tarragon. Two tablespoons of each one. Just give the dill a nice rough chop. I love the smell of it. Okay, two tablespoons of fresh tarragon. And then I'm going to put the rest of the dressing in. I think it really needs it. It's kind of my habit to put half the dressing in and then half later when I'm done. You just never know how much it's going to absorb. And I hate when it's just soggy. So give it a nice stir. The nice thing about this potato salad is it has to sit for about 30 minutes. All the flavors meld together. They get into the potatoes. So I'm just going to let this sit here. And then Barbara and I are going to have a tasting. See if it's good.