Keys to good potato salad

There are two main keys to making good potato salad.

One is to slightly over cook the potatoes - but not too much! If the potatoes are cooked long enough where they start to fall apart slightly, their starchiness will contribute to the dressing, thus making a more creamy potato salad. However, if the potatoes are cooked too much, they'll turn into mashed potatoes when you mix in the other ingredients, which is what happened to my potato salad this weekend. It still tasted good though.

The second key is to mix in the other ingredients while the potatoes are still warm - not piping hot though or you'll cook and discolor your celery and onions. Mixing the other ingredients while the potatoes are warm means the potatoes will absorb more of the flavors and the salad becomes a whole.

The ingredients I use when I make my potato salad are as follows (I never measure!):

• potatoes (Idaho or red bliss usually)


• diced celery


• diced Vidalia onion


• Hellman's Real mayonnaise - no low fat stuff please


• cider vinegar


• sugar


• salt


• pepper


• celery seed


• a tiny amount of wet mustard, but not enough to make it yellow


• sometimes if I have hard boiled eggs in the fridge, I'll add some, but it's not required

I basically follow the recipe on the back of the Hellman's jar, but again, I don't measure.