Picnic Potato Salad, boasting gut-healthy probiotics from the dill pickles & cultured sour cream, is loaded with flavor for your next picnic.
All-American Potato Salad
Potato salad is at almost every picnic, a part of every BBQ, and a summer staple in many homes. In fact, it is so popular in our home that one of my children, I won’t name names, has been known to get up bright and early for leftovers before the potato salad is nailed by some other sibling…or dad.
Eating potato salad reminds me of sitting poolside at my Mema and Papa’s house on a summer afternoon. Papa would always run to the market and grab several side salads from the deli department to have alongside our burgers. Unfortunately, the potato salad always seemed plain and rather boring to me but I will never forget the joy my Papa had running to the market. He always brought a smile to the clerks faces and mine as well as he flipped burgers while I swam under the sun.
The Secret Ingredient
Now I have to say, in the summer I am a potato salad connoisseur. But it has to have flavor. Honestly, it is an absolute insult to a potato to be consumed without any effort to dress it up properly. This recipe boasts many flavors to delight the senses: fresh dill, red onion, dill pickles, celery, black olives, hard-boiled eggs, and paprika. Even with all the wonderful additions, I have to say the secret ingredient is…dill pickle juice. Yep, when those taters come out of the boiling water, piping hot, they are placed on a cookie sheet, drizzled in fermented pickle juice and yellow mustard, and then set in the refrigerator to cool. Give your Picnic Potato Salad the extra benefit of probiotics for better digestion and good gut bacteria by using the juice from your dill pickles and flavorify your potatoes from the inside out.
Paprika isn’t just for Color
Technically, you could use any paprika you choose to dress your salad. While recently shopping at my local Savory Spice shop I learned that paprika has more to offer than just a brilliantly beautiful burnt-orange color. The clerk at the shop encouraged me to smell and sample each of the five paprikas they featured. Then, I was to toss any leftovers from my hand onto the floor for them to sweep up later (that was a little awkward but liberating for me). Paprika was not a flavor I was familiar with. Ignorantly, I thought is was just a flavorless color enhancer so I just purchased regular paprika at the grocery store. But to my delight, when I sampled each of the paprikas, I settled on Hungarian Sweet & Spicy because the addition of the cayenne pepper in the blend gave it just the perfect potato salad kick.
The Recipe & Process
Picnic Potato Salad
Many times, deli potato salad is just plain boring. But not this potato salad. It boasts of all the flavors an All-American potato salad should have, including a secret ingredient...fermented pickle juice.
Ingredients
- 2 hard-boiled eggs
- 8-10 large Yukon Gold Potatoes (about 4 lbs), peeled and diced into cubes
- 1/4 cup salt (sea water salty for the potato water)
- 1/2 cup fermented dill pickle juice (from your own fermented pickles or Bubbies brand pickles)
- 1/4 cup chopped dill pickle
- 1 T yellow mustard
- 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
- 1 tsp celery seed
- 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
- 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup chopped black olives
- 2 T chopped fresh dill
- 3/4 cup mayonnaise (I use Chosen Foods Classic avovado oil mayo)
- 1/2 cup sour cream ( I prefer pasture-raised Good Culture or Supernatural Sour cream) or full-fat Greek yogurt
- sprinkle to garnish with Hungarian Sweet & Spicy Paprika (Savory Spice brand) or regular paprika
Instructions
- Prepare your hard-boiled eggs. I have an egg cooker, but for those that don't, fill a small saucepan with 1 quart of water, 2 tsp salt, and 2 eggs and bring to a boil. Remove pan from heat and set aside, covered for 10 minutes. Transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process, and let cool for 5 minutes before you peel and chop your eggs.
- Place your cubed potatos into a pot of cold, salted water, covering by 1 inch. Add enough salt to the pot of water so that it tastes like sea water. Remember most of this will be discarded with the water but will leave your potatoes with the perfect amount of flavor.
- Bring to a boil on high heat.
- Reduce to medium-low heat, and simmer until the potatoes are tender, not mushy (about 15 minutes).
- Drain potatoes thoroughly and then spread out on a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Mix together pickle juice and mustand and drizzle over the hot potatoes. Stir to evenly coat and place in the refrigerator to cool for about 3o minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
- In a large bowl, add chopped pickles, ground pepper, celery seeds, mayonaise, sour cream, red onion, celery, black olives, and fresh dill
- Gently add the cooled potatoes and chopped egg to the bowl and stir.
- Refrigerate for 30 minutes more until well-chilled before serving.
- Sprinkle with Hungarian Sweet & Spicy Paprika and garnish with fresh dill.
Notes
Hungarian Sweet & Spicy Paprika is a delicious blend of Paprika pepper and cayenne that is not overpowering, yet adds a nice punch. I purchase it at a little shop called Savory Spice in downtown Franklin, TN but it is available for purchase online.
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Savory Spice Hungarian Sweet & Spicy Paprika
Bubbies Brand Fermented Dill Pickles– If you want the added benefits of probiotics, you will need to purchase dill pickles that say “raw and fermented” on the label. You can find them in the refrigerator section of most grocery stores. Any pickle that is in the center aisles of the grocery store is not raw. Feel free to use any pickles you have, but raw and fermented will have the healthy probiotics to enhance digestion with good bacteria and build a healthy gut flora.
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In everything you do -eat, play, and, love- may it always be Seasoned with Joy!
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