There are many cold potato salad recipes that can be used to make this family favorite dish. No potluck,picnic, or cookout is complete with out some form of this favorite dish. The usual ingredients include boiled potatoes, mustard and or mayonnaise, and may vary somewhat after that point.
There are several steps to making cold potato salad, and a shortcut for each step. The first step is to peel and boil the potatoes. A couple of good shortcuts for this process include scrubbing the potatoes instead of peeling them, and cooking them in the microwave to speed up the process. Running cold water over the cooked potatoes in a colander also helps speed things up, as does putting the dried potatoes in the fridge while chopping the other ingredients and mixing them. You can also use a microwave egg poacher to hard poach the eggs instead of boiling them, then cube the eggs and stick in the freezer for about 5 minutes to cool them off. If you use other ingredients fresh from the fridge, your dish will go together much more quickly, and chilling after making is the key to a great tasting dish.
My personal favorite involves potatoes, chopped celery, boiled eggs, chopped onions, mayonnaise, sour cream, mustard, salt, pepper, topped with fried bacon pieces, and small halved cherry tomatoes. Served up inside large leaves of lettuce or cabbage placed in the bowl, this makes an attractive and tasty side dish for any event. While the ingredients themselves are fairly simple and the process of making the dish is simple enough, not everyone has the time to make this dish.
Many cold potato salad recipes use mustard and or mayonnaise as one of the ingredients, however I have also seen recipes that include oil and vinegar as the dressing or Italian dressing. These recipes make for a unique and interesting side dish, as they are not what is expected from this type of dish. The basics are still the same, however slicing the potatoes in thin slices instead of cubing them as for traditional potato salad puts another spin on this dish. One such recipe includes the use of Italian dressing, green peppers, sliced green onions, and chopped celery. This is a much lighter version than the traditional cold potato salad. This version does however rank high on the taste factor. You simply boil the potatoes whole, allow them to cool thoroughly, and slice them in rounds, add the dressing, the peppers, onions and celery and mix well, then refrigerate before serving. This is a delicious light alternative to traditional fare.
Just remember when making these dishes, that they are sometimes better the second day when all the flavors have had time to blend together. Hopefully these hints will help you enjoy making and eating your cold potato salad recipes in the future.