Favorite Potato Salad

More About This Recipe

• For much of its early history, potato salad was a hot-and-vinegary sort of dish. The earliest written recipes for American potato salad began appearing in the 1850s, and they called for cooked potatoes dressed with oil, vinegar and herbs, a style we’ve come to call “German potato salad,” and which is known as "Kartoffelsalat" in Germany. The cold, mayonnaise-dressed version of potato salad gained popularity in the early 20th century, thanks to the appearance of jarred mayonnaise on grocery store shelves. The great thing about potato salad is that, with mildly flavored boiled potatoes as your base, you have full creative freedom to make it your own. Substitute Greek yogurt for all or part of the mayonnaise, add chipotle peppers or Sriracha sauce to spice it up, and sprinkle on plenty of flavorful add-ins like crumbled cooked bacon, sliced scallions, plain or flavored potato chips or crumbled blue cheese. Once you’ve tried this easy potato salad recipe and learned how to make potato salad, you can find more inspiration from Betty’s Best Potato Salad Recipe Collection.