Patriotic Side Dish
For a patriotic side dish or just a colorful one, try making red, white, and blue potato salad. Since it is a popular food for picnics, why not make it festive!
Choosing Potatoes
Around patriotic holidays you can find small bags of potatoes with all three colors (red, white, and purple) packaged together, such as the Celebration Blend (shown below). Other times, you can find small loose potatoes or each color packaged individually. If you don’t buy a blend with all three colors, buy purple and red potatoes for this dish because you will have enough white showing from the inside of the red potatoes.
This recipe uses small or fingerling potatoes because they cook faster than larger potatoes and have more potato skin for adding color to the salad. Just remember not to take off the red potato skin or you will end up with white potatoes. The purple potatoes usually have purple flesh, but sometimes they are white inside, so you will want to keep their skins on too.
After cooking, be sure to drain the potatoes in a strainer and then dry them with a clean towel. Also, let them cool before making the salad because they can sweat, making the salad runny. If you are in a hurry, put them in some ice water to cool them quickly. Then dry them, and they are ready to use.
Other Veggies
I add red or purple carrots to this potato salad because they add a little more color to it and a nice crunch! If you have trouble finding them, you can omit them or add extra red pepper for color. I tend to skip the orange carrots for this salad to stick to the color scheme.
Hard-Boiled Eggs
This salad has hard-boiled eggs in it. You can omit them if you don’t like eggs in your potato salad; however, if you use them, be sure to chop just the egg whites to put in it because the yolks will turn this salad yellow. Enjoy!
| Prep Time | 20 minutes |
| Cook Time | 20 minutes |
| Passive Time | 4 hours |
| Servings |
|
- 2 pounds small round red, white, and purple potatoes
- 2 hardboiled eggs, coarsely chopped, white only (See note below)
- 1/2 cup bread and butter pickles, chopped (or another pickle with a balance of sweet and sour taste)
- 1/3 cup celery, chopped into small pieces
- 1/2 cup red pepper, chopped
- 1/3 cup purple onion, chopped
- 1/3 cup red or purple carrots, chopped (optional) (See note below)
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 2 teaspoons yellow mustard
- 2 tablespoons juice from the pickles
- salt
- pepper
Ingredients
|
Rate this recipe!
|
- Wash potatoes. Place them unpeeled into a pan and cover them with water. Bring to a boil and then add 1 teaspoon of salt. Boil for 20 minutes or until tender. Drain, rinse in cold water, and let cool.
- At the same time the potatoes are cooking, add the eggs to a pan of water and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Cool the eggs in ice water once cooked. Then peel and chop. Set aside.
- Mix together the mayonnaise, sour cream, and mustard in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Cut the potatoes into quarters and place them into a large bowl. Sprinkle the pickle juice over the potatoes and stir to coat. Then add the pickles, celery, green pepper, onion, and carrots. Add the mayonnaise mixture and stir to coat. Stir in the eggs. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Refrigerator for 4 hours or until cold.
Tips
- Use only egg whites because the yolks will turn the potato salad yellow.
- You can substitute sweet pickles for the bread and butter ones in this recipe. If using sweet pickles, add only 1 tablespoon of pickle juice. Taste for sweetness before adding any more juice.
- Do not substitute orange carrots if you want to keep the red, white, and blue color theme. If you cannot find red or purple carrots, you can omit them and add a little more bell pepper.