This EASY Potato Salad recipe is made using a few traditional ingredients including a combination of mayo and mustard, relish, potatoes, eggs, celery, and onions. Garnish with dill, paprika, green onions, and even bacon.
Be sure to serve this with a side of my Copycat Texas Roadhouse Rolls!
Easy Potato Salad
Potato salad is such a classic recipe. It’s super simple to make and while there are just a few ingredients, they all compliment each other and serve a great purpose.
I absolutely love the combination of using mayo and mustard. Adding hard-boiled eggs make it even more fun to eat than just straight potatoes, and I’ll tell you how to make the most perfect eggs every time.
The onions and celery add a nice crunch, the relish adds a hint of tang, as does the white vinegar which also enhances the flavor of the potatoes and slows down discoloration.
Let do this! I’ll show you how it’s made, what potatoes are the best for this recipe, how to store it, and more.
How to Make it
See recipe card below this post for ingredient quantities and full instructions.
- Gently boil whole/unpeeled Yukon Gold Potatoes until they can be easily pierced with a fork, 20-25 minutes.
- Drain and dice into bite-sized pieces. Toss with white vinegar and let cool.
- Combine with mayo, yellow mustard, relish, garlic powder, onions, and celery.
- Add in diced hard boiled eggs and mix gently. Season with salt/pepper if desired.
- Transfer to a clean serving bowl garnish with dill, paprika, and green onions.
Best Potatoes for Potato Salad
- Waxy potatoes such as red potatoes or Yukon golds hold their shape best after boiling and have a creamier consistency.
Pro Tips
- Leave the skin on the Potatoes: This helps prevent the potatoes from getting mushy. The potato skins are also easy to peel off after they’ve been boiled.
- Use potatoes of roughly the same size: This allows them to cook at the same rate. If you’re unable to get your hands on same-sized potatoes, remove the smaller ones from the heat sooner and allow the larger ones to continue cooking.
- Start with cool water in the pot then bring it to a boil. It helps for more even cooking.
- Add white vinegar to the potatoes while they’re still warm: This will enhance the flavor and slow down discoloration.
- Add the Mayo mixture once the potatoes have cooled: This will prevent the potatoes from getting oily.
- Cooked/Crumbled bacon makes a great garnish as well.
Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs:
- Submerge the eggs in 2 inches of cool water in a pot on the stove-top.
- Gradually bring them to a boil.
- Once the boil is reached, cover the pot and turn off the heat.
- Let them sit for 12 minutes.
How Much Potato Salad Per Person
- 1/2 pounds of potatoes per person is a good rule of thumb when making potato salad.
Storage
- Leftover potato salad that is refrigerated shortly after eating it can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.
- According to Idaho Potato, if the potato salad has been left out at temperatures over 41° for longer than 2 hours, it should be discarded.
Can you Freeze Potato Salad?
- The creamy mayo base used for potato salad doesn’t freeze well, and neither do hard boiled eggs or celery.
- If you find yourself with an overabundance of potatoes, you can freeze cooked potatoes to use for future potato salads, twice baked potato casserole, or hash brown casserole.
Tools For This Recipe
(Amazon affiliate links)- Check out all of my kitchen essentials here.
- Glass Serving Bowl – I love this one.
- Silver Serving Spoon
- Large Pot– This is the perfect size for boiling the potatoes.
- Chef’s Knife– This one is great and is affordable. I use it all the time.
- Silicone Spatula– Makes it easy to gently mix and coat the potatoes without breaking them.
Try These Next
- Glazed Ham
- Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes
- Copycat Texas Roadhouse Rolls
- Roasted Carrots
- Easy Brown Gravy
- Roast Chicken
Get My Free Meal Plan
I’ve got a Free Meal Plan with 7 of my super popular recipes (complete with grocery list)! Sign up for my email list and I’ll send it over now along with weekly dinner recipes!
And follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
Tried This Recipe?
Leave a review, I love hearing your feedback! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Easy Potato Salad
Ingredients
Potato Salad:
- 8 medium Yukon gold potatoes, about 3.75 lbs. total
- 2 Tablespoons distilled white vinegar
- 2 celery sticks, diced
- ¼ cup yellow onion, finely diced
- 5 hard-boiled eggs, see notes
- Salt/pepper, to taste
Potato Salad Dressing:
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- 2 Tablespoons yellow mustard
- 1.5 Tablespoons sweet relish
- ½ teaspoon garlic salt
To garnish:
- ½ teaspoon dried dill weed
- 1/4 teaspoon paprika
- 3 green onions, diced
Instructions
- Fill a large pot with cool water, enough to cover the potatoes by 2 inches. Clean the potatoes, leave the skin on. Add them to the pot, and stir in a teaspoon of salt.
- Bring the water to a gentle boil and cook until fork tender, 20-25 minutes.
- While the water boils, combine the onions, celery, mayo, mustard, relish, and garlic powder in a small bowl. Set aside in the fridge.
- Drain the potatoes. Once cool enough to handle, dice them into cubes. You can leave the skin on if desired, I leave the skin of some and remove it from others.
- Drizzle with white vinegar while they're still warm and gently stir to combine. Let them cool.
- Toss with mayo mixture until combined. Add diced hard boiled eggs and mix gently. Season with salt/pepper if desired.
- Transfer to a clean serving bowl. Garnish with dill weed, paprika, and green onions.
- Refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours, covered.
Notes
- Submerge the eggs in 2 inches of cool water in a pot on the stove-top.
- Gradually bring them to a boil.
- Once the boil is reached, cover the pot and remove them from the heat.
- Let them sit for 12 minutes.
Red potatoes or Yukon golds hold their shape best after boiling and have a creamier consistency.
Storage: Leftover potato salad that is refrigerated shortly after eating it can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.
Nutrition
This is super delicious! I love the tang from the vinegar. I’m hoping things get back to normal and I can have friends over for some summer cookouts this year. This would make the perfect side dish! Thanks for sharing!
I’m SO happy to hear that Tracy, I love the tang that it adds too, it keeps the salad nice and fresh too. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave this review, I really appreciate it. -Stephanie
Girl…. this is delicious!!! I loved it and my husband ( whose mother makes the BEST potato salad either of us have ever had) said “ uhm don’t tell me mom but this might be better than hers”. Thank you – my family and guests loved it and this will be a new family favorite for sure!
Whitneyyy!!! You just made my day, I actually just sent that review to my mom, because this is her recipe! You are the best for taking the time to come back and leave this beautiful comment. I hope you had a wonderful memorial day weekend!❤️❤️❤️
What a classic! This version looks so good, perfect for spring meals.
Yessss! It’s my moms classic recipe! Can’t wait to make it for Easter this weekend! ❤️
Tip/substitute: add 1-2 T sweet pickle juice to the mayo dressing + about 8 finely chopped sweet pickles, 1/2 t sugar and 1/4 t celery salt instead of relish. 🙌🏻