The Best Creamy Potato Salad

What makes creamy potato salad even creamier? Sour cream! The smooth and tangy dressing in this recipe features mayonnaise and sour cream with hints of mustard, red wine vinegar and celery seed. (You’ll want to put it on a lot more than potatoes.) To pump up the creamy factor even more, we add hard-boiled eggs that lend richness and texture to this all-American potluck staple.

When taste-testing this dish, you may eat far more of it than you expected. We won’t tell.

Ingredients for Creamy Potato Salad

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• Medium-sized red potatoes: Red potatoes are the star of this creamy potato salad recipe. The skins add a little color as well.
• Hard-boiled eggs: When mixed with the mayo and mustard in this potato salad, hard-boiled eggs, take on a deviled egg flavor. What’s not to love about deviled eggs?
• Mayonnaise: Mayonnaise is the base ingredient for the dressing in this potato salad. It also adds flavor to the eggs.
• Sour cream: Sour cream is mayonnaise’s sidekick in this super tasty potato salad; together, they work in the background with the other dressing ingredients for a mouth-watering side dish.
• Sugar: The sugar adds just a touch of sweetness to balance the tanginess of some of the other ingredients.
• Red wine vinegar: The amino acids in red wine vinegar add umami to this potato salad. It’s one of the things that make this such a great recipe.
• Red onion: Chopped red onion adds both crunch and color to this creamy potato salad.
• Prepared mustard: Mustard brings just the right flavor notes to the mayonnaise and sour cream coating the potatoes.
• Celery seed: Celery seed adds an earthy, celery-like flavor to this potato salad without using actual celery stalks.
• Fresh dill (optional): Fresh and feathery dill is not only a garnish but a tasty potato salad add-in. This light herb offers notes of parsley, celery and citrus with a hint of anise.

Directions 

Step 1: Cook the potatoes

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Place the cubed potatoes in a saucepan and add enough water to cover them. Place the lid on the pan, bring the water to a boil and cook the potatoes until they’re tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Drain the potatoes and let them cool.

Step 2: Make the potato salad

Alejandro Monfort for Taste of Home

Transfer the potatoes to a large bowl and add the chopped hard-boiled eggs. In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream, sugar, red wine vinegar, chopped onion, mustard, celery seed, salt and pepper. Pour the dressing mixture over the potatoes and toss to coat. Refrigerate the creamy potato salad, covered, for at least six hours. Garnish with fresh dill before serving.

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Creamy Potato Salad Variations

• Make it vegan: Omit the hard-boiled eggs and use vegan mayonnaise and sour cream substitutes. You’ll still get that creamy flavor and texture without the dairy.
• Swap potatoes: Don’t have red potatoes? Try Yukon gold or fingerling potatoes, a baby potato blend, purple or sweet potatoes.
• Add relish: For a hint of sweetness and just a little crunch in every bite, add sweet relish.

How to Store Creamy Potato Salad

Keep leftover creamy potato salad in a tightly sealed storage container in the refrigerator for three to five days. Will there ever be leftovers, though?

Can you make creamy potato salad ahead of time?

Yes, this creamy potato salad recipe is a great choice to make ahead since the flavors will have time to meld a bit longer. The hardest part is avoiding the temptation to eat it.

Can you freeze creamy potato salad?

Yes, you can freeze potato salad for up to three months.  Just know that the texture may change from the freeze and thaw cycles. Store it in zippered freezer bags, remove the excess air, and stack the bags flat. Thaw the creamy potato salad in the refrigerator and gently stir it before enjoying it again.   

Creamy Potato Salad Tips

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How can I make the dressing stick to the potatoes better?

The potatoes should be completely dried before mixing the ingredients so that excess water doesn’t build up in your creamy potato salad. After the potatoes finish cooking, let them dry in a strainer for a while, then cool them the rest of the way in a single layer on a baking sheet.

Should I peel the potatoes?

The potatoes do not have to be peeled for this creamy potato salad recipe. The red potato skins add a little color but feel free to peel them off if you don’t care for their taste in a potato salad.

Can I add bacon to this potato salad?

We love a good bacon potato salad. Even though this recipe doesn’t call for it, crispy crumbled bacon is excellent here, as it brings loads of flavor and irresistible crunch. After cooking the bacon, let it cool on paper towels and pat off as much grease as possible before crumbling the cooled bacon into the creamy potato salad.