My favorite no mayo potato salad recipe calls for lots of fresh herbs and swaps a creamy dressing for one made with lemon juice and olive oil. Serve cold or warm like a French potato salad.
In this herb potato salad, I toss warm potatoes with our zesty lemon Dijon vinaigrette. This salad is reminiscent of a French potato salad. Since the potatoes are warm, they absorb all the delicious flavors of the dressing.
Our mayonnaise-free herb potato salad dressing is quick to make, a bit healthier, and tastes fantastic! If you prefer a more traditional creamy dressing, see our creamy potato salad.
Key Ingredients
- Potatoes: I love using small waxy potatoes for this herbed potato salad. Red bliss potatoes or fingerlings are also excellent options. The smaller the potatoes, the better since they cook quickly and don’t require extra time chopping.
- Lemon and red wine vinegar: I love the combination of fresh lemon juice and red wine vinegar for the potato salad vinaigrette. You can use just one if you don’t have both in the kitchen.
- Dijon mustard: I use Dijon mustard a lot when making salad dressings. It’s tangy and helps to make vinaigrettes creamy and emulsified.
- Olive oil: Mayonnaise is a popular ingredient in classic American potato salad, but for this recipe, we leave the mayo out and make a simple olive oil dressing. The combination of olive oil and mustard helps to make it a creamy (dairy-free) vinaigrette.
- Fresh herbs and scallions: This is my favorite part of this recipe. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. When it comes to fresh salads, I honestly don’t think you can add too many herbs! I usually end up adding parsley, dill, and mint, but basil, chives, or tarragon would also be wonderful.
How to Make Mayo-Free Herb Potato Salad
This herb potato salad is quick and easy. Start by cooking your potatoes. I like adding my potatoes to cold water and placing them over a burner. I also add about 1 tablespoon of salt to the water to help season the potatoes as they cook. When I can easily pierce them with a fork, I drain them and set them aside to cool down a bit. I cut the potatoes in halves or quarters when I can handle them.
My olive oil dressing is quick and simple. I whisk lemon zest, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, a pinch of salt, pepper, and olive oil together until emulsified and creamy. Then, pour the dressing over the warm potatoes. The warm potatoes will soak up the dressing much better than cold potatoes.
Finally, I carefully toss the potatoes with lots of fresh herbs and scallions. I love serving this mayo-free potato salad warm or at room temperature. It’s delicious!
What to Serve with Lemon Herb Potato Salad
This vinaigrette-style potato salad works well for summer cookouts and picnics, but I really love it as a side dish for dinner. I especially love serving this herby salad next to my garlic caper baked salmon, this incredible shrimp scampi, and our perfectly roasted chicken. It’s also excellent served next to tuna steaks, tuna salad, and chicken salad.
Lemon Herb Potato Salad
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
Our mayonnaise free herb potato salad is packed with flavor thanks to a simple olive oil vinaigrette, lots of fresh herbs, and lemon. We prefer to use small baby potatoes (sometimes labeled New Potatoes), fingerling potatoes, or Red Bliss potatoes for this salad.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
2 pounds (907g) small yellow or red potatoes
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 ½ teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar or champagne vinegar
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 medium green onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Directions
1Add the potatoes to a large stockpot and cover with water by 2 inches. Add 1 tablespoon of salt to the water and bring to a boil.
2Reduce to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are fork tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain, then set aside to cool.
3When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them into bite-sized chunks or slice them into thin rounds. Add them to a large salad bowl.
4Whisk the mustard, lemon zest, lemon juice, vinegar, and olive oil until creamy and emulsified. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
5Pour all but 1/4 cup of the dressing over the potatoes and toss. Set the potatoes aside for five minutes to absorb the dressing (it will look like a lot at first, but the potatoes will soak it up).
6Add the scallions and fresh herbs. Toss gently but thoroughly. If the potato salad seems dry, add a splash of the remaining dressing.
7Serve warm or cover and refrigerate, and then serve cold.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Storing: Store herb potato salad in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. As the herbs sit in the dressing, they will lose some color.
- Make ahead: Since the herbs lose color over time, toss the potatoes with the dressing and store them in an airtight container in the fridge. When you are ready to serve it, toss in fresh herbs, scallions, and lemon zest.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
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This salad was wonderful! Everyone loved it, including my four kids (ages 5, 12, 15, and 17). It was so tangy and fresh with the lemon zest and fresh herbs. I’m looking forward to making more of your recipes!
I love this recipe, I prefer purple potatoes for their nuttiness so I used those instead and it was so delicious!! Will definitely be making this again.
So happy you loved it. We love purple potatoes! They are delicious and beautiful. They would be wonderful in this potato salad 🙂
Hi Ashley, Thanks for coming back and sharing. I bet the salad was beautiful with purple potatoes.
This Recipe is spot on. I just finished making it and it is very tasty right now. I didn’t have Mint so I skipped that. I think the dressing would be good as a homemade salad dressing too. I’m going to add hard boiled eggs tomorrow when I serve it and some crunchy bacon, easy and healthy except for the bacon. Lol
lol…love the bacon addition. Thanks for the wonderful review! 🙂
Delicious! The mix of fresh herbs and tangy vinegar made this a great summer side dish. My kids enjoyed it too!
Loved it! I didn’t have baby potatoes so just used the Yukon Gold potatoes I had on hand and cut them accordingly. Very fresh and summery, light and lovely plated on a bed of fresh spring mix. Elegant summer side dish. Thank you for the recipe.
Looking forward to trying your delicious looking recipes. I will make your creamy potato salad this weekend for my Easter dinner. Can’t wait to make it!
Hi! This salad looks amazing. I was wondering if it would be ok to use dried herbs?
I Kris, You can use dried herbs. As a rule of thumb, we use about 3 times the amount of fresh herbs than dried. So when converting to dried, cut the amount called for in the recipe by a third.
Have you tried this recipe with cauliflower instead of potatoes ? Thanks
Hi Betsy, We have not, although it is a great idea!
perfect! I saw this a few days ago and was craving little yellow potatoes and herbs. Finally made it, so fresh and satisfying ( served it with chicken. Thanks guys!
You guys have done a good job. No one can beat it. Thank you.