15: Our Favorite Dish to Pass: Potato Salad Made by the Kids

Potlucks and holiday parties are a cinch when we have to bring a dish to pass, because we always bring our family favorite! Homemade potato salad has a lot of steps, but the work is made easier when everyone has a task.

We don’t use a recipe but rather a “framework” for success:

Per serving:

• 1 potato
• 1 hard-boiled egg
• 1 dill pickle spear
• 1 generous dollop of mayo
• 1 big ol’ squirt of yellow mustard
• salt and pepper

I hope you can use the skills your kids learned in the Kids Cook Real Food^™ eCourse to make potato salad (or your own family favorite recipe) a way to connect as a family and learn the value of real teamwork!

Can’t see the video? Click to watch “Our Favorite Dish to Pass: Potato Salad” on YouTube.

No time to watch the whole video? Here are the notes!

Homemade Potato Salad Recipe Video Time Stamps

• 0:17: Homemade potato salad is a lot of work, so we get lots of helpers!
• 0:36: John shows us how to hard boil eggs in the instant pot.
• 0:58: Paul washes and dices the potatoes.
• 1:32: We get the eggs out of the instant pot. We put the eggs directly into ice water to make them easier to peel.
• 2:54: John shows us how to cut the eggs. He’s using a sharp knife, but even little kids can use a butter knife or cheese knife to cut up hard boiled eggs.
• 4:05: Paul cooks the potatoes for 10-15 minutes.
• 4:56: We will “dress” the potato salad while the potatoes are still a little bit warm because they’ll suck up the flavors better that way.
• 5:13: Leah cut up pickles. We do 1 potato, 1 egg and 1 pickle per serving in this “recipe.”
• 5:56: We put it all together with the dressing!
• 6:20: I show two examples of healthy mayonnaise made with avocado oil: Primal Kitchen (link below) and Chosen Foods (from Costco).
• 7:57: Now we will taste it to see if we need to add anymore mayo or mustard. We love mustard in our family, so you might not want quite as much as we use!
• 8:06: Salt is super important to make your potato salad taste good!
• 8:46: We put in our secret ingredient!
• 9:24: We taste it and see how it is!

The Homemade Potato Salad Recipe

Homemade Potato Salad Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 4 whole potatoes
• 4 dill pickle spears [fewer if they’re big ol’ whole pickles]
• 1 – 2 tsp. yellow mustard
• 1 Tbs. homemade mayo
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• pepper to taste

Homemade Potato Salad Directions:

1. Hard boil the eggs.
2. Cool and peel them.
3. Dice into bite-sized cubes.
4. Peel the potatoes (optional).
5. Dice potatoes into bite-sized cubes.
6. In a medium pot, cover the potatoes with water. Add some salt — about 1/8 -1/4 teaspoon
7. Cover and bring to a boil.
8. Turn heat to low and set a timer for 10 minutes.
9. Check the potatoes with a fork to see if they’re soft all the way through. If not, wait 5 more minutes and check again.
10. Drain the water off the potatoes and allow them to cool.
11. Dice the pickles into tiny pieces with a sharp knife.
12. In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, eggs, pickles, mustard, and mayo.
13. Stir well using a Roller Coaster stir (a term we teach in the Foundations 101 class on stirring in Kids Cook Real Food^™). It will seem dry at first but keep going. If you’re sure you have stirred thoroughly and it still seems dry, add more mustard and mayo.
14. For a fun zip, pour in a splash of pickle juice from the jar!
15. Add salt and pepper and stir well again.
16. Taste and see what you think!

Notes for Homemade Potato Salad 

• Many pickles have artificial colors in them (unfortunately) but it’s getting easier to find brands that don’t. Read the ingredients!
• This recipe is easy to double, triple or quadruple for families or parties.
• You can use any sort of cooked potatoes, even baked, if you want. The flavors will soak into the potatoes better if you mix it all up while they’re slightly warm. But if the timing works better to cook the potatoes and eggs one day, refrigerate overnight and mix it up the next day, it will still taste good!

Homemade Potato Salad Recipe Resources We Mentioned

How to hard boil eggs in the Instant Pot here.

Get Primal Kitchen mayo (with avocado oil and clean ingredients!) at Thrive Market and 25% off your first order + free shipping with this link.

Or make your own mayo like this or check out this how to video.

Real Salt is the best! Find some here on Amazon.  (As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases)