Just imagine… freshly cut green grass in the back yard, smell of sausages cooking on the grill, cold beer in your hand… It’s time to enjoy some outdoors and celebrate the season! Somehow, it seems it’s always a challenge to come up with a good side dish idea, though. You want something that people will like, something flavorful and not boring. We tend to stick with the same favorites and recycle practiced dishes over and over. You try to think up a good dish, and you end up with the same-old same-old.
Well, this may be a simple potato salad, but it will NOT be a same-old potato salad. My potato salad is fragrant with herbs and garlic, soft potatoes and crunchy onion. Creamy mayo adds a layer of flavor creating a dish that pairs well with outdoor cooking, but also makes a great party or a potluck side dish.
I don’t know about you, but we eat a lot of potatoes. A traditional Polish dinner often consists of potatoes (boiled and served whole topped with butter and herbs, like parsley or dill), side salad (here are a few examples: sauerkraut slaw, carrot salad, beet salad, etc) and a protein (and a few examples here: ribs, meatballs or fried fish) creating a perfect combo of starches, fats and greens. This set up provides many opportunities for leftovers. Access potatoes can be used to make many Polish dishes, like pierogi ruskie or kopytka for example and I think it goes without saying that Poles are pros at utilizing leftovers. Polish kitchen relies on it greatly thus providing opportunities to not only save money, but also stretch your food further and prevent you from throwing ANYTHING away… If you’ve ever lived with a Pole, you’ll know that and we’re really good at NOT throwing ANYTHING away.
Polish Potato Salad {Sałatka Ziemniaczana}
Ingredients
- 5-6 medium potatoes (I like red)
- 4 hard-boiled eggs
- 4 pickles
- 1/2 of a white onion chopped or 3 whole green onions chopped
- 1/2 cup / 120 ml of mayonnaise
- 3 tbs of fresh dill (or parsley or both), chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- 1/4 tsp of freshly ground pepper
Instructions
Wash potatoes and boil skin on in salted water. Boil eggs. Cool both.
Dice potatoes (about 1⁄2 inch / 2 centimeter cubes), peeling excess skin off and leaving some of the skin on. Peel and dice eggs, dice pickles and mince the onion (or green onions). Place all in a large mixing bowl.
Add remaining ingredients. Mix well. Taste. Add more salt, if needed.
Cool and mix again before serving.
Simple and flavorful, you can’t go wrong with it. Add more onions, herbs or mayo, if you’d like. Taste it and be open to make adjustments to fit your favorite flavors.
Smacznego!
Anna
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Question….. What type of pickles? Sweet, regular or dill?
Polish Dill! 😁
I actually add 1 chopped gala apple to this salad. The extra crunch and sweetness adds so much to it. My Polish mother made it like this and so did her family in Poland. This recipe goes way back! Delicious!
Good idea!
My father was Polish. His potato salad also includes spring onions, chopped olives and whipped cream together with the mayonnaise. It is always better the next day after the mayo and cream have penetrated the potatoes. We always have extra cream and mayonnaise on hand for replenishing the salad the next day. It’s a Christmas special at our family here in hot Australia 🇦🇺
Yesterday I went wild making Polish (or Polish-ish) salads: I made potato/vegetable salad, celery root salad, carrot salad, red coleslaw (red cabbage, red onion, grated carrot), all with my home-made mayo (really easy and quick). Now we’re trying to source good ingredients (and organic) to make mielonaka and smalec. Next week we’re going to stay with our grandson, Isaac, and I want him to help us make gołąbki, partly because I think he’ll enjoy helping, and partly because I think a six-year-old English boy will love eating something called gowompki!
Great news. Good job grandpa!!
I love how you spell out the pronunciation of your food in some of your recipes. Do you think you could do that regularly? I like to say it the right Polish way!
Great summer salad! Thanks for sharing.