Pesto Potato Salad Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How to keep potatoes from falling apart when making potato salad? ›

And by the way, be sure to use white (boiling) potatoes for potato salad; they do a better job of holding their shape. Baking potatoes, such as russets, will fall apart. Pull the potatoes out of the water as soon as they're tender. This will keep them from overcooking and falling apart.

Add a pinch of salt if the basil tastes too bitter or the pesto needs more zing. Add more Parmesan if you'd like a creamier/cheesier pesto. If desired, you can thin out the pesto with more olive oil.

There's no reason at all, so my advice is to leave the skins on. The skin on a potato adds a nice texture and flavor to the potato salad and it's also the healthiest part.

Rinsing potatoes helps remove excess starch, so it is recommended to rinse the potatoes before cooking. To ensure even more starch is out of the way, it's recommended that they even be quickly rinsed after boiling. We recommend using hot water for rinsing after boiling and cold water prior to boiling.

Drop a whole russet into the pot and by the time the outside has cooked through, the inside will still be raw. Larger potatoes should be cubed to ensure they cook evenly (peeled first if desired). Smaller potatoes tend to have thin skins and can be boiled whole, no peeling required.

When using vinaigrette, don't let the potatoes cool before dressing them. And when making a mayonnaise-based potato salad, stay away from dressing warm potatoes. The hot potatoes will cause the mayonnaise to melt and become oily.

Russet, Yukon Gold, or red potatoes (new potatoes) are all excellent for potato salad. They do cook at different rates so be sure to adjust cook time depending on which type of potato you select.

In general small or cubed potatoes will take about 10 to 15 minutes to boil, while larger, whole potatoes will take between 20 to 25 minutes. To check potatoes for doneness, insert a knife into one. If it slides in without much effort, you're good to go!

Most often, then, the solution to evenly cooked potatoes is cooking them twice: First, boil, steam, or steam-roast (a fancy term for cooking them with water in the oven) until they're mostly tender but not fall-apart finished. Second, brown the outsides and finish cooking the interiors on the stovetop or in the oven.

How to fix hard potatoes in potato salad? ›

I just made a potato salad, and I undercooked the potatoes- they are semi hard...and I aready mixed everything together, is there anything I can do to fix it, without throwing it out? Microwave it for about 30-40 sec until they soften how you like them. Make sure to refrigerate after and cool before eating.

Russet, Yukon Gold, or red potatoes (new potatoes) are all excellent for potato salad. They do cook at different rates so be sure to adjust cook time depending on which type of potato you select.