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This Creamy Southern Potato Salad is the one that you crave alongside those ribs and slices of brisket, or on the side of a juicy burger! This mayonnaise based, mustard potato salad, is beyond easy to make with the classic addition of hard boiled egg and dill pickle. Only a handful of ingredients are needed.
All about this Potato Salad…
- Simple Ingredients: No need to get fancy with this recipe. This is the classic recipe that you will find throughout the state of Texas served at the BBQ joints. Heavy on the hard boiled egg, dill pickle and ground black pepper.
- Great Make Ahead Side Dish: not only can you make this dish ahead of time if you have an event coming up, this particular recipe tastes better if made a day in advance!
- Quick and Easy: this recipe comes together with minimal steps. This is not a labor intensive dish.
Ingredients Needed:
Notes on some ingredients:
- Potatoes: Gold potatoes are a great option for potato salad due to them being a waxy potato. They have less starch and hold up their shape when boiled. Russet potatoes can be substituted, but they are more starchy and will break down more when boiled and mixed together which may be your preference.
- Mayonnaise: this is the base of the dressing. If you have dietary/allergy needs this can be swapped for plant based options or greek yogurt or sour cream. Keep in mind this will also alter the taste of the completed dish.
- Mustard: classic yellow mustard.
How to make (step-by-step):
- Step 1: Prepare Potatoes. peel and chop the potatoes to 1/2 inch cubes.
- Step 2: Boil potatoes. Add the potatoes to a large pot and cover the potatoes with water, bring this to a boil and let the potatoes cook to soften.
- Step 3 & 4: Prepare the dressing by combining the ingredients (mayo, mustard, relish, salt and pepper) together in a small bowl. Cover and let this sit in the refrigerator until needed.
- Step 5: After the potatoes have been boiled to fork tender and allowed to cool for 20 minutes, then add the dressing and hard boiled eggs.
- Step 6: Gently stir the ingredients together until combined. Cover and let this chill for at least 2 hours before serving.
Expert Tips:
- Dressing the Potatoes: Add the dressing while the potatoes are warm, this helps them to absorb the flavor better. Since this is a mayonnaise based dressing, don’t dress as soon as they finish cooking and are hot, let them sit and cool for 15-20 minutes first.
- Salt: Salt the potatoes while cooking once the water starts boiling. This add more flavor.
- Cold Water: Place the chopped potatoes in the pot and cover with cold water and bring this to a boil. Starting with cold water helps make sure the potatoes cook all the way through nicely without falling apart.
- Chill Time: This dish always tastes better the second day! So plan ahead and make this recipe the day before.
Potato Salad: FAQS
It is best to boil the potatoes cut when making potato salad. This gives a quicker boiling time and ensures that the potatoes cook at the same time giving you perfectly tender bites of potato throughout the dish. Cutting boiled potatoes can be challenging due to the texture and can cause your potatoes to break apart leaving you a mushier salad.
Cook the potatoes until fork tender. This can take 10-20 minutes depending on the size that your potatoes are cut to.
This depends on the texture you want and prefer for your salad. Waxy gold potatoes will hold their shape well after boiling and mixing. Russet potatoes will soften and become slightly mashed after mixing with the dressing.
More BBQ Side Dishes:
Southern Potato Salad
Ingredients
- 3 lbs potatoes russet or gold
- 3 large eggs hardboiled
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- ¼ cup yellow mustard
- ⅓ cup dill pickle relish
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
Instructions
- Peel and chop the potatoes to 1/2 inch size cubes. Add the potatoes to a large pot. Cover with water and heat over medium heat to a boil. Sprinkle in about 1 tsp of salt.
- Cook the potatoes until they are fork tender, approximately 15-20 minutes.
- Drain the potatoes and rinse under cold water. Add potatoes back into the empty pot and place back on stovetop. The warm pot helps dry off the potatoes.
- In a small bowl combine the ingredients for the dressing: mayonnaise, mustard, relish, salt and pepper.
- After potatoes have cooled about 20 minutes, add them to a large bowl. Dice the hardboiled egg and add to the bowl with the potatoes.
- Spoon the dressing over the potatoes, and gently stir to mix and coat the potatoes in the dressing.
- Cover and chill for at least 2 hours before serving.
Equipment
Notes
- Potatoes: Gold potatoes are a great option for potato salad due to them being a waxy potato. They have less starch and hold up their shape when boiled. Russet potatoes can be substituted, but they are more starchy and will break down more when boiled and mixed together which may be your preference.
- Mayonnaise: this is the base of the dressing. If you have dietary/allergy needs this can be swapped for plant based options or greek yogurt or sour cream. Keep in mind this will also alter the taste of the completed dish.
- Can be made ahead of time and stored overnight before serving.
- Store in sealed container in refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Recipe first published May 22, 2020. Updated June 3, 2022 with new images and information. Recipe is unchanged.
Photography by the talented @KJandCompany.co
This is almost my mom’s exact recipe, the only one I’d ever use & the one I grew up on!
The difference is a little less mustard, sweet relish instead of dill & instead of dicing the eggs, she would mash the yolks & then add the ingredients, dicing only the whites.
Makes for a very smooth, delicious dressing with just a touch of sweetness!
Can’t give the exact amounts, I don’t believe there was ever a written recipe.
Hope you’ll try it & compare!
Clear and straight to the point direction makes it very easy to follow. Thank you
Love it. I added celery to mine.
Solid, traditional, delicious potato salad. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
Good recipe, tastes very much of home (we’re currently living away from Texas, but eager to get back once we can). I made a few changes to the cooking process:
When I cooked the potatoes, I added about a tablespoon of vinegar for each quart of boil water. The pectin that binds the potato starch molecules together breaks down more slowly in acidic environments, so adding vinegar to the cook water makes the “window of perfection” stay open for longer (i.e., it makes it harder to overcook them).
As soon as I’d transferred the rinsed potatoes back to the pot, I sprinkled them with a couple of tablespoons of dill pickle juice. As they cool, they’ll shrink a very small amount, and the cooked starch on their surface will harden; both of these will keep flavors from penetrating quite as much. Adding a bit of pickle juice when they’re still quite hot gave them a bit more brightness, which balanced out the richness of the mayo and eggs.
Delicious! Next time I might use a bit more mustard (maybe make the mayo/mustard ratio 2:1 instead of 4:1, or maybe use a combination of yellow mustard and dijon mustard, or both)? Might also add some chopped red onion or celery or minced serrano or smoked paprika… One of the great things about this recipe is that it’s yummy on its own, but straightforward enough that it can serve as a wonderful canvas for experimentation.
Thank you so much for your comment Greg! I love the information about adding the vinegar to the boiling water. I’m so glad that the recipe gave you something to work with and brought back some tastes of home! Hope you get back to Texas soon. Texas misses you too!