This is hands down our family’s favorite potato salad, and for good reason! It’s incredibly easy to make, uses simple ingredients, and features a classic 3-ingredient dressing that’s so good you’ll be licking the bowl clean.
We’ve been making this recipe for years, and honestly, I haven’t found anything that beats its perfect balance of creaminess and flavor. In fact, we love this dressing so much that we even use it for our more herby red potato salad!
Beyond how delicious it is, this recipe is so easy to make! I’ll share my tips for perfectly cooked potatoes, explain why each ingredient earns its place, and emphasize that incredible dressing. Trust me, if you take anything away from today, jot down our potato salad dressing—it’s a game-changer! And, if you ever crave a different style, you might also enjoy my mayo-free lemon herb potato salad for a lighter, vinaigrette-style option.
Key Ingredients
- Potatoes: Small, waxy, thin-skinned potatoes are best for potato salad. (I especially love small Yukon Gold potatoes, which are pictured.) They cook quickly, and since they are small, we cook them whole, which means less prep time! Russets or baking potatoes work, but the texture is a bit different. You will also need to cut them before cooking.
- Celery and Pickles: Both add a fresh crunch. Our family LOVES dill pickles, so we always add them, but you can leave them out or use sweet pickles instead.
- Red Onion: I love a little onion in my salad and like to “deflame” the onions before adding them to my salad. It’s easy. Soak chopped onions in cold water for 10 minutes, and then drain. The time in the water takes the raw edge off the onion.
- Hard-Boiled Eggs: Eggs are a must for me in potato salad, but you can leave them out if you aren’t a fan. Here’s my recipe for how to cook hard boil eggs if you need it.
- Fresh Herbs: I love dill and parsley in this salad!
- The BEST Potato Salad Dressing: It only has 3 ingredients and tastes so good that I end up licking the bowl. Mayonnaise and sour cream make our dressing extra creamy without being too heavy and yellow mustard adds a kick of flavor and color (I usually use Dijon mustard in our recipes, but regular yellow mustard wins in this recipe). Plain yogurt works as substitute for sour cream, and homemade mayonnaise makes this extra special. We use the same dressing when making this creamy red potato salad and turn it into a sauce for these roasted fingerling potatoes.
How to Make the Best Potato Salad
I’ve made this potato salad many times and am always happy that I did. Here are three tips I think you need to know so you can make it the best:
I cook whole, small potatoes in nicely salted water when making potato salad. You are looking at 15 to 20 minutes for small to medium potatoes. I leave them with the peel on, which makes the texture and flavor much better once added to the salad.
I peel the potatoes after cooking them. While I love using skin-on potatoes for mashed potatoes, I remove the skins for potato salad. Since I’m using smaller potatoes in this recipe, they cook quickly and are much easier to peel after cooking than before (you can see how quickly the peel comes away from the potatoes in our video).
Now, for my best secret for potato salad! I sprinkle my warm, chopped potatoes with apple cider vinegar, something I learned from Alton Brown years ago! If you take anything from me after reading this, make it this tip! Vinegar makes the flavor of our potatoes pop and adds a little bite, which is fantastic when mixed with the creamy dressing. Other vinegars or even pickle brine are good substitutes.
Easy Creamy Potato Salad
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
My family’s favorite potato salad recipe! Use small yellow, white, or red potatoes and cook them whole for the best texture. If your potatoes are on the larger side, you can chop them. If you have the time, store the salad in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so before serving. This extra time helps the flavors mingle and makes for a better potato salad. For an herby version of this salad, see our creamy red potato salad or for a vinaigrette-style salad without mayo, I highly recommend our lemon herb potato salad.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
2 pounds small yellow, red, or white potatoes
1 tablespoon apple cider, wine, or rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup mayonnaise, try homemade mayonnaise
1 tablespoon yellow mustard, substitute Dijon or whole grain mustard
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped, about 1/2 cup
3 celery stalks, finely chopped, about 1/2 cup
1 medium dill pickle, finely chopped, about 1/3 cup, try homemade pickles
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped, optional
1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs like parsley, dill, chives, tarragon, or cilantro
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
Directions
1Cook the potatoes: Add the potatoes to a large pot and cover with 1 ½ inches of water. Season the water with 1 teaspoon of salt for every quart of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork.
2De-flame the onions: While the potatoes are cooking, place the chopped onions in a small bowl and cover them with cold water. Let them sit for 10 minutes, then drain and rinse. This simple step significantly tones down their raw flavor.
3Prepare an ice bath: Just before your potatoes are ready, fill a medium bowl with ice and cold water.
4Chill and peel the potatoes: Drain the cooked potatoes and immediately transfer them into the ice bath. Once cool enough to handle, but still a bit warm in the middle, remove them from the ice bath and peel. The skins should be easy to remove (pinch and pull them away).
5Chop and season the potatoes: After peeling, chop the potatoes into bite-sized chunks and place them in a large bowl. Drizzle the tablespoon of vinegar over the potatoes and lightly season with salt.
6Make the dressing: In a separate large bowl, whisk together the sour cream, mayonnaise, and mustard until well combined.
7Assemble the potato salad: Add the prepared dressing, de-flamed onions, celery, pickles, chopped eggs, and fresh herbs to the seasoned potatoes. Gently stir everything together, being careful not to mash the potatoes.
8Finish and serve: Season the potato salad with salt and pepper to taste. If time allows, refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes before serving to let the flavors improve.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Sour cream substitute: Use 1/2 cup crème fraîche or plain yogurt for the sour cream.
- Cooking hard boiled eggs: For instructions on how to cook hard boiled eggs, visit our tutorial: How to cook hard boiled eggs.
- Storing: Store your potato salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days. Potato salad improves on the second day, so this is a perfect make-ahead recipe! I do not recommend freezing potato salad (the dressing does not freeze and thaw well).
- Dried herbs: You can use dried herbs for this salad, we recommend adding a heaping tablespoon of dried herbs (I especially love dill and chives).
- What to serve it with: We often serve this salad during the summer. I love it with burgers and grilled steak. It’s perfect with slow cooker pulled pork and these baked ribs. And it’s just amazing with veggie burgers or these simple black bean burgers.
- More easy sides: Potato salad is also excellent when served next to other sides, such as our pasta salad, this amazing corn salad, easy bean salad, and my favorite cucumber salad.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
Do you use extra apple cider vinegar for the creamy sauce or is the 1 tablepoon for the suace and extra on the potatoes after they cook?
We use 1 tablespoon of vinegar and scatter it over the warm cooked potatoes. There is no additional vinegar required.
loved this recipe!! i’m a teen and i don’t cook at all lol and this recipe turned out delicioussss im proud of myself but tbh thanks to you guys for making this easy to follow (with the yt video)!!
Very good!!! Made my own “ad lib” sour cream out of what I had (4 oz. cream cheese, 2 T half and half, T lemon juice — in a small food processor), had no celery so used 1/2 tsp crushed celery seeds and diced red bell pepper, can’t eat onions, used only 1 boiled egg, sub. Dijon, used 1/4 tsp. of suggested herbs dired versions (didn’t have any terragon), and sub. 2 T sweet pickle relish (didn’t have any dills). So, IOW, if you cook and don’t have all the ingredients, this is a good, solid, basic recipe that can be slightly changed to use what you have on hand.
What if I don’t have red onion? Can I leave it our or use green onion?
Green onion, yellow, or sweet onion are all fine.
This looks so good. I don’t even eat potatoe salad . My family will love it.
This is by far and wide the absolute best potato salad recipe I have ever made!! Thank you from the bottom of my potatoe lovin heart! I have made this 3 times and people want to pay me to make it for them! You are the bomb!
You made us smile with this comment! We are thrilled that you love the recipe 🙂
I’ve made this several times and it’s my favorite potato salad ever! I add paprika and a dash of cayenne to the sour cream mixture. So good!
This chef is top of her field. I love her style and recipes. This potato salad is second to none. Do yourself a favor and make this for your Easter buffet.
This potato salad is awesome.. The only thing i didn’t care about was peeling the potatoes. Took.me FOREVER. I started using a peeler.
In the top instructions you say “I use waxy potatoes…you will have to cut the before cooking.” But in the actual recipe you stress how important it is to cook them whole.
Hi Jo, I suggest cutting larger potatoes (like Russets) before cooking them. If you have small potatoes (my preference), there is no need to cut them. Here’s the section for you “Small, waxy, thin-skinned potatoes are best for potato salad. (I especially love small Yukon Gold potatoes, which are pictured.) They cook quickly, and since they are small, we cook them whole, which means less prep time! Russets or baking potatoes work, but the texture is a bit different. You will also need to cut them before cooking.”
Your recipes calls for 2 lbs. potatoes . When I look at the video you have 6 or 9 potatoes in the pot. So I would like to know how many potatoes you use because six or nine potatoes is more than 2 pounds so I’m at a loss here. I donot want to get the count wrong. I’m making the salad.how many Cups, did you chopped 4 cups or two cups. Help! Looks so good and I wanna try it but I need help. Thanks. Muriel
We use 2 pounds of potatoes for this recipe.
Beautiful potato salad. The only thing I added extra, was some oven crispy bacon.Delicious!!
Delicious! We added this to our Christmas buffet this year, and it was so good. This will be our go-to potato salad from now on. Thanks!
Love your recipe