11 Crowd-Pleasing Potato Salad Recipes for Cookouts and Beyond

Our superlative version of the classic, creamy summer side is just the beginning.

Updated June 18, 2024

Overhead view of classic potato salad served in a light blue bowl. — Serious Eats / Eric Kleinberg

The form of potato salad most of us expect to encounter on a picnic table is popular for good reason. This delicious summer classic offers an endearing contrast of textures and flavors: fluffy, tender chunks of potatoes and crisp chopped celery and onion, with creamy mayonnaise-based dressing and tart pickles. Of course, part of the dish's appeal is logistical—it's imminently portable, easy to serve at potlucks, and can be made well ahead of time.

The only problem with traditional potato salad is its ubiquity. For those of you who tire of the plain old version, we have a wealth of alternatives on offer. From a delightful dill-flecked Scandinavian variation to creative takes that call for pickled onions and tarragon pesto, you're sure to find a new potato salad recipe you love in this collection. And don't forget to check out our primer on potato varieties before getting started!

Easy Fingerling Potato Salad With Creamy Dill Dressing
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
Inspired by Scandinavian-style potato salads, this salad pairs creamy fingerling potatoes with dill, red onions, and just enough tangy sour cream-based dressing to bring the dish together.
Easy Fingerling Potato Salad With Creamy Dill Dressing
Fingerling Potato Salad With Chorizo, Onion, and Arugula
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
This mayo-free potato salad—infused with the tangy, spicy flavor of Spanish chorizo and peppery greens—includes both pickled onion and sautéed onion. Adding a crunchy and tart form of onion as well as a pile of supple, sweet, and lightly caramelized onions is an ingenious example of how to make the most of your ingredients.
Fingerling Potato Salad With Chorizo, Onion, and Arugula
Erdäpfelsalat (Austrian-Style Potato Salad)
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
This unusual potato side is dressed with Dijon, white wine vinegar, minced red onion, chives, and a half-cup of chicken stock. If you have the time to plan ahead, Kenji found that storing potatoes in the refrigerator for a few weeks makes them noticeably sweeter, and especially well-suited for this Austrian potato salad.
Erdäpfelsalat (Austrian-Style Potato Salad)
German Potato Salad
Serious Eats / Diana Chistruga
This warm salad is dressed with fried bits of bacon and onion—along the drippings they were cooked in—along with plenty of whole mustard, vinegar, sugar, chopped parsley, and chives. Logistically, this may not be the best salad to tote to a picnic or cookout, but if you're planning to make the salad right before meal time, it can't be beat.
German Potato Salad
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Classic Potato Salad
Serious Eats / Eric Kleinberg
This is our go-to "purist" recipe, for when we want superb results whilst avoiding any ruffled feathers at a cookout. Kenji's take hits all the right notes: tangy, salty, and sweet with a texture that's simultaneously creamy, crunchy, and fluffy in each bite.
Classic Potato Salad
Yukon Gold Potato Salad With Tarragon Pesto and Pickled Onions
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
A tarragon-parsley sauce is the perfect summery herb dressing for this simple, tangy salad. Pickled onions add acidity as well as crunch.
Yukon Gold Potato Salad With Tarragon Pesto and Pickled Onions
Japanese Potato Salad With Cucumbers, Carrots, and Red Onion
Serious Eats / Qi Ai
This popular yōshoku dish (that is, a Japanese adaptation of a Western-style recipe) adheres to the form of classic, mayo-based potato salad, but changes it up in a delicious and compelling way. Thinly sliced carrot, Persian cucumber, and red onion join the potatoes, along with chopped hard-boiled eggs, and scallion. The Kewpie-rice vinegar dressing is perked up with a dash of Japanese hot mustard.
Japanese Potato Salad With Cucumbers, Carrots, and Red Onion
Simple Grilled-Potato Salad With Grilled-Lemon Vinaigrette
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
This grilled potato salad offers a range of textures—crispy, crunchy, and creamy—with a nice smokiness from the grill, balanced by a tart grilled-lemon vinaigrette that's flavored with scallions and shallots.
Simple Grilled-Potato Salad With Grilled-Lemon Vinaigrette
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Creamy Vegan Fingerling Potato Salad
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
This salad gets its creaminess from a dressing that incorporates mashed potato and a splash of the potatoes' starchy cooking liquid. Whole-grain mustard, white wine vinegar, pickle relish, sugar, and capers round out the dressing, giving it a briny, spicy, sweet-tart punch.
Creamy Vegan Fingerling Potato Salad
Fingerling Potato Salad With Aioli, Pesto, Fried Shallots, and Pecorino
Serious Eats / Joshua Bousel
Here, tender fingerlings are tossed with freshly prepared aioli, then topped with big dollops of basil pesto, a liberal dusting of Pecorino Romano, and a handful of crispy fried shallots.
Fingerling Potato Salad With Aioli, Pesto, Fried Shallots, and Pecorino
5-Ingredient Smoked Salmon and Potato Salad
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
Based on a dish served by Jessie Ziff-Cool, this potato salad incorporates three ounces of smoked salmon as a seasoning of sorts, adding a meaty, smoky, umami-boosting bass note to the herbed crème fraîche dressing (sour cream works quite well here, too). According to Kenji, this relatively small addition of smoky, salty fish "elevates [the dish] from being a mere side salad to the King of Side Salads, or even the Respectable Middle-Class Worker of Main Courses."
5-Ingredient Smoked Salmon and Potato Salad

11 Crowd-Pleasing Potato Salad Recipes for Cookouts and Beyond

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