The Secret, Surprising Ingredients Cooks on Reddit Are Adding to Their Potato Salad
Add some pizzazz to potato salad by trying these flavor combinations.
Potato salad is a classic, easy go-to summer staple—for everything from picnics, potlucks, and outdoor barbecues, to meal-prepping for the week's easy lunches and dinners. Even if you already have a recipe in mind, there’s no denying the delight in discovering another version of dill potato salad, which may even turn out to be your next favorite.
There are many reasons to love potato salad. For one, it’s nostalgic. “Its comforting familiarity and association with positive memories make it a heartwarming dish,” says registered dietitian Trista Best, MPH, RD, LD. And, it’s nutrient-dense, which means it’s a nice option for lunch to avoid a dreaded afternoon slump. “Potatoes are a good source of nutrients, like carbohydrates, fiber, potassium, and vitamin C,” Best notes.
When paired with vegetables, herbs, and a drizzle of olive oil or a light salad dressing, potato salad with dill can be a healthy and convenient meal or snack for anytime of day. “Potato salad is typically served chilled, which makes it refreshing, especially during hot weather, and its creamy texture, along with the coolness of the salad, can be quite satisfying,” Best says. Herbs, including dill, are classic for a reason and tend to evoke a little chill.
Still, it’s always nice to boost flavor further with a few other ingredients that’ll offer extra zest, nuttiness, or sweetness—and, there appears to be much interest in doing so, according to a recent Reddit thread, in which users offered tips and recipes for an otherwise typical potato salad with dill.
Here are a couple of notable, delicious-sounding foods to add to potato salad.
The Best Dill Potato Salad Add-Ins
Chives
A lot of Reddit users agreed on the use of chive in potato salad with dill. Several users suggested using flowering chives, to give dill potato salad a more oniony flavor. One Reddit user, named TitsandTators, suggested combining tarragon, grainy mustard, red wine vinegar, and chives, for example. Or simply highlight the herb itself like in this Red Potato Salad with Sour Cream and Chives.
Hard-Boiled Eggs
Another idea on the thread? Chop up hard-boiled eggs and toss them in dill potato salad. This tip was mentioned a couple of times, where it was combined with a few common ingredients, such as mayonnaise, red wine vinegar, or a Dijon mustard dressing, as well as with herbs and spices, including chives, garlic, and paprika. There is a reason the Old-Fashioned Potato Salad recipe on our site, featuring chopped egg, is so popular!
Sour Cream
If you’re looking for a tart, cool, and refreshing potato salad recipe, add some sour cream. A Reddit user who goes by the name missilefire wrote, “I usually do mayo, sour cream and mustard for the dressing.” You can also play up the use of herbs here, adding in chives, tarragon, sage, or garlic powder, which were mentioned in the thread. Or, you can crank up the heat and use regular or smoked paprika, which was also an idea suggested by a few users.
Brussels Sprouts
Brussels sprouts not only provide fiber, protein, and other nutrients, but they also complement dill well and taste great with a fatty source. For instance, many Redditors suggested adding Brussels sprouts and bacon, or Brussels sprouts with garlic, for a meaty, savory feel. Another idea in the thread is to combine Brussels sprouts with brown butter or Granny Smith apples. A Redditor, who goes by Impossibleish, integrated both sweet and savory notes, and wrote, “I do honey and butter with bacon bits and sauteed the sprouts in bacon. It's insanely good.”
Bacon and Cheese
In addition to combining Brussels sprouts and bacon, you can also mix in bacon and cheese. Users mentioned adding bacon grease, or bacon fat, as well as bacon bits or chopped bacon to their potato salads. As for the cheese, one Redditor, who goes by the name kcolgeis, suggested going heavy on it and wrote, “Yup, tons of bacon and cheese. Loaded baked potato salad!” One user mentioned using soft cheese, such as goat cheese or Boursin, and another user suggested a blue cheese dressing. Lastly, Parmigiano cheese was also recommended, particularly with the use of bacon bits.
Vinegar
Using vinegar, such as red wine vinegar, in dill potato salad was very popular among Redditors, for its nice acidity. Many users suggested using Dijon mustard and vinegar to make a light, clean dressing. Rice wine vinegar was also mentioned, along with apple cider vinegar. Basically, there are several vinegar options, so choose the one that appeals to you most to add flavor, German Potato Salad style.
Paprika
Many users suggested using Paprika to season a dill potato salad, whether regular or smoked. The use of spices in potato salad, in general, seemed to be quite popular. For example, Reddit user ptanaka suggested paprika, along with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and celery salt, with mayonnaise or a honey mustard vinaigrette dressing. Including hard-boiled eggs here would be a nice fit, too.
Sweet Pickles
Sweet pickles, as opposed to dill pickles, help balance out the dill flavor and provide sweetness for potato salad. Some users recommended pickle juice or brine, while others suggested chopped whole or fresh pickles (any sweet pickles or bread and butter varieties). For greater potency, mix in the juice, too. You can swap out about half the amount of vinegar you’d typically use for the dressing and substitute with pickle juice, as suggested in the thread. Taste the method in Mom's Mashed Potato Salad here.
