Potato Salad

Potato salad is one of my favorite side dishes.  It’s one of those dishes that will always remind me of summer, picnics, potluck dinners and the Fourth of July.  It’s easy to make, easy to transport, and most people like it, so you can’t really go wrong serving it. 
Probably the best thing about potato salad is the tremendous versatility to the dish.  Potatoes mix well with a whole variety of different flavors, and there are hundreds of different potato salad recipes out there to try.  Once you find a basic recipe that works for you, its easy to modify it here and there to even better suit your tastes.

The only common denominator to potato salad recipes is some kind of fat or oil base.  Basically, you can separate potato salads into two general categories; potato salads made with mayonnaise, and potato salads made with some kind of vegetable oil.  Most potato salad recipes also use mustard, some amount of assorted vegetables, and various seasonings. 

Mayonnaise based potato salad seems to be the most popular today, and is usually the kind people immediately think of.  While its very tasty, it does involve a fairly large amount of mayonnaise, which is of course high in saturated fat and cholesterol.  When I was growing up, these kinds of concerns didn’t really seem to bother anyone, and I remember my grandparents practically shoving the stuff down my throat.  And strangely, they lived into their late 90’s even though they routinely ate large quantities of high fat food.  I guess they just don’t make genes like they used to.

My grandparents aside, most people today are becoming more and more health conscious, and oil based potato salads are making a big come back.  I say come back, because the very first potato salad recipes were all made with olive oil.  Of course, this was probably just because there was no mayonnaise back then, and not because people of the early 19th century were health conscious.  That said potato salad made with olive oil is in my opinion no less delicious than its mayonnaise based counterpart.  It’s different, and may take some getting used to, but with the right seasoning can be every bit as good.

Seasoning is key, not matter what kind of base you use for your potato salad.  What kinds of seasoning you use is of course entirely up to you.  If you can handle a little spice, I highly recommend using cayenne pepper, or chili powder to give it a little flair.  If you are like me and are especially fond of spicy food you can even add some actual chili peppers, chopped up, to give it an extra kick.  Just be sure to ware anyone else that maybe eating your potato salad!