Old Fashioned Potato Salad With Olives

What You Can Expect From This Recipe

This is the old fashioned potato salad that I grew up on. It’s a 3rd generation old recipe passed down from my great grandmother, grandmother and my mother. It’s a southern potato salad recipe that’s just what you’d expect as a classic.

It’s been a Summer side dish for years for grilled burgers, ribs and my favorite grilled chicken recipe. It’s simply Summer perfect.

Old fashioned potato salad is one of those true comfort food side dishes that brings with it memories of family gatherings, and Summer outdoor picnics or bbq’s.

This recipe includes what I think to be the perfect balance of potato salad dressing. A blend of mayo, with just enough mustard to brighten the flavor and a good crunch with celery and onion. This recipe includes a bit of excitement by making it a potato salad with olives. We’ve always used green olives.

Our version, a creamy sauce wrapped around a dependable American potato just can’t be beat.

Potato Salad Ingredients

• Small Red Potatoes: Red potatoes, no matter what their size are ideal for potato salad. They are lower in starch so hold their shape better.  And higher in sugar, they make a better tasting potato salad.
• Mayonnaise
• Onions: We prefer sweet or yellow onions.
• Celery
• Olives: Green olives please.
• Yellow Mustard: Adds the tang.

Ingredient Swaps and Substitutions

• Potatoes: You can also use Yukon gold potatoes or purple potatoes. Each of those varieties are low starch potatoes so will help their shape. Like red potatoes, they are also higher in sugar content for a tasty potato salad.
• Olives: We like to use pimento stuffed green olives, but a potato salad with black olives (ripe olives) would also be a good choice to add a bit of a briny flavor to this classic potato salad recipe.
• Mayonnaise: My mom always made with Miracle Whip Dressing rather than mayo. It brings a sweeter end flavor result and makes this more of a Southern Potato Salad recipe.

1. Step 1: How Long To Cook Potatoes for Potato Salad: Rinse potatoes and cut out any unsightly spots. There’s no need to peel the potatoes. You can peel them once they are cooked if you simply don’t want the peel for appearance reasons. Add enough cold water to cover the potatoes by a couple of inches. Slowly bring the potatoes to a simmer over medium heat. Add about a ½ cup salt. Don’t let them come to a hard boil. We don’t want them bouncing and bumping all over the place, just a good simmer. Watch them closely. If you cook them too long, you’ll have mashed potatoes when you mix the salad, not enough and you’ve got that raw potato taste.
2. Step 2: Drain potatoes in a colander: How do I know when potatoes are done? Insert a sharp knife into one of the potatoes. When it slides out easily and feels tender. The potatoes are done enough for potato salad. Remember, when you drain them in the colander, they’re so hot, they’ll continue to cook for a few minutes more. Here’s where you can decide to leave skins on or off. The skins will peel off easily since they’re cooked. With a sharp knife very coarse chunk them while they’re sitting in the colander.

3. Step 3: Meanwhile, chop your vegetables. I use about 1 cup of sweet onion, preferably Vidalia. 1 cup chopped celery, ½ cup sliced  pimento-stuffed green olives and sometimes some chopped bacon.  Place them in a large bowl.
4. Step 4: Pour steaming chunks of potatoes over the bowl of chopped vegetables and let sit for about 5 minutes before stirring. I like to do this to steam the vegetables and let the flavors marry a little bit.

5. Step 5: The Potato Salad Dressing: Top with mayonnaise and mustard. With a large spoon gently fold the potato salad together. Don’t stir too much, this may cause the potatoes to break apart and cause the potato salad to become mushy. At this time I start adjusting the flavors, adding more mustard and mayo, if needed, for both texture and flavor. NOTE: Remember, the potatoes were boiled in some salty water. Taste before adding salt and pepper.

Old fashioned potato salad is routinely topped with sliced hard boiled eggs. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

The Best Potatoes For Potato Salad

Choose a low starch potato such as Yukon Gold or Red Potatoes.

Potatoes with a high starch content, like russets, are great for baked potatoes, and and also yield light and fluffy mashed potatoes. Those with a low starch content, like red-skinned potatoes, hold their shape after cooking, and are great for making potato salads and scalloped potatoes.

Red Skinned and Yukon Gold potatoes have a more delicate skin that russet, therefore, there is no need to peel them before boiling. The skins are very edible and there’s no need to peel them to make the potato salad. Unless you want to.

Variations

• Instead of adding olives, try a dollop of sweet pickle relish or even dill pickles. On occasion, my mom would even pour in a little pickle juice.
• Everything is better with bacon. Add ¼ cup of chopped cooked bacon.
• Red onions will change the flavor profile. They’ll add a bite and a stronger onion experience.
• Potato salad with dill is a natural flavor combo. Garnish the potato salad with some chopped fresh dill fronds.
• Want even a little more tang? Add a splash of apple cider vinegar. Or try a splash of red wine vinegar.
• If I think this potato salad recipe needs a little more of a creamy factor, I like to add a generous tablespoon of sour cream rather than more mayo.

Storage

Potato salad will keep in the refrigerator for about 4 days. Store covered and an air-tight container is preferred.

And remember, potato salad is a mayo based side dish. If taking potato salad to a picnic or outdoor bbq, don’t let it set out more than two hours. A trick to keep that potato salad “safe” is to place it on ice.

If the potato salad has set out in warm temperatures for more than a couple of hours, you’ll need to toss it out. And that’s a shame to miss out on all of those leftovers.