Cowgirls in the Kitchen – Kit Morgan – June 23

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Cowgirls, Cast Iron, and Cold Taters: The Storied Scoop on Potato Salad!

Whether you’re wrangling cattle or wrangling kids to the picnic table, no summer gathering is complete without that humble hero of the side dish world: potato salad. Creamy or tangy, warm or cold, dressed up with dill or spiced with mustard, this kitchen staple has been dishing up comfort for generations.

Potatoes themselves didn’t make their way to Europe until the 16th century, but once they did, it didn’t take long for cooks across Germany and beyond to start combining boiled potatoes with vinegar, mustard, and onions. That early version became the ancestor of what we now call potato salad.

When German and other European immigrants packed up their culinary traditions and headed to the New World in the 1800s, they brought their beloved potato recipes with them. American potato salad likely sprouted from North German roots. They were cold, creamy, and often filled with chopped eggs and sweet pickles. Meanwhile, South German potato salad served warm with vinaigrette and bacon found its own fans here, especially on ranches and around chuck wagons.

I like to think of a cowboy cook spooning hot potatoes into a tin bowl, tossing them with a little bacon grease, vinegar, and salt before setting the dish beside a pot of beans. No mayonnaise in sight. It wouldn’t work for trail life! But by the time our grandmothers were making potato salad in icebox kitchens and feeding entire Sunday school classes, the mayo version had taken hold.

In honor of that legacy, here’s a good, old-fashioned American-style potato salad recipe you might’ve found in a vintage church cookbook or tucked in your grandma’s recipe tin.

Grandma’s Classic Potato Salad

  • Ingredients:
  • 2½ pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • 3-6 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
  • ¾ cup mayonnaise (or to taste)
  • 2 tablespoons yellow mustard
  • ½ cup finely chopped celery
  • ¼ cup sweet pickle relish
  • ¼ cup chopped red onion
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Optional: paprika for garnish

Instructions:

  1. Boil potatoes in salted water until fork-tender, about 15–20 minutes depending on size. Drain and cool completely.
    2. In a large bowl, combine potatoes, eggs, celery, relish, and onion.
    3. In a small bowl, mix mayonnaise and mustard, then fold into the potato mixture.
    4. Season with salt and pepper, cover, and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
    5. Sprinkle with paprika before serving if you’re feeling fancy.

But don’t think America’s the only place where folks love their taters. Potato salad has gone global! In France, they use olive oil and fresh herbs; in Russia, it’s a holiday staple known as Olivier salad; in Japan, they mash the potatoes and mix them with veggies, ham, and a touch of rice vinegar. Turns out, everyone loves a good potato!

My family’s own recipe has been handed down for generations, and I believe originated in the 1930s or 40s. Omit the mustard. It was all about the mayonnaise. And Nana Bee’s recipe is pretty much like the standard
Grandma recipe, only she used sliced green olives instead of pickle relish. She also used regular white or yellow onion, no red. We’ve never measured the ingredients. It’s all to taste. In fact, I’m making some of our family’s traditional potato salad this week. How can I not after writing this post? Now I’ve got the craving!

So tell me, what kind of potato salad did your mama make? Did she serve it up with fried chicken on Sundays or pack it in a basket for summer picnics? Leave a comment below and let’s swap recipes and stories like it’s a quilting bee.

Because some dishes aren’t just food. They’re memory, love, and heritage all in one.

 

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USA Today bestselling author Kit Morgan is the author of over 180 books of historical and contemporary western romance! Her stories are fun, sweet stories full of love, laughter, and just a little bit of mayhem! Kit creates her stories in her little log cabin in the woods in the Pacific Northwest. An avid reader and knitter, when not writing, she can be found with either a book or a pair of knitting needles in her hands! Oh, and the occasional smidge of chocolate!

24 thoughts on “Cowgirls in the Kitchen – Kit Morgan – June 23”

    • When my daughter took her potato salad to the contest, they called it the American classic potato salad. I guess that version was very popular back in the fifties.

  3. Good ol’ “German” potato salad with bacon grease, vinegar, chopped green onions, celery seed and lardons from the diced-up bacon was all that was served in our house. My Mom would try and fancy it up with hard boiled eggs and shredded carrot, but it was a no go. The basic German/ “cowboy” potato salad is a go to for me. It’s requested, year-round, when I take a potluck dish and when my kids come for a visit.

  4. My mother puts boiled eggs, celery, onions, and mustard in hers. It’s my very favorite dish she makes. We eat it year around, but especially for potlucks and picnics.

  5. I do not like potato salad but my husband loves it. He says my mother made the best. She used a bit bacon and the grease in hers.

  6. My family loves potato salad, though I do try to limit to BBQ’s and special occasions, they love it paired with spanish rice

  7. My mom made it with chopped eggs, onions, and pickle relish along with mayo. I make it the same way.

  8. I enjoyed this post Thank you. I agree, potato salad is delicious. My mom would make it for us as a side dish with fried chicken and also on the side of pork chops. I like my potato salad to have cut up dill pickles and some pimento in it.

  9. My mom was a Miracle Whip person. No mayonnaise at our house. Potato salad was a summertime favorite; potatoes, boiled eggs (2 or 3 and one sliced or quartered to decorate the top), celery chopped and diced onions, salt, pepper, and sometimes celery salt. Nothing was ever measured. Occasionally she would add diced cucumber or sliced radishes from the garden. I sometimes add a little yellow mustard. Other times I add snipped dill weed and place sprigs of dill between the egg quarters to top the bowl of salad.

    At my house we also eat hot potato salad for breakfast occasionally; fry chopped bacon, add chopped celery and onion and sauté them, add the potatoes and mix ‘til warm and add the salad dressing or mayo mixing it ‘til warm , salt, pepper, celery salt. Everything to taste, no measuring. Sometimes I will add boiled eggs.

    For those who don’t know dill weed is the fern like leaves of the dill plant and are best when small and the plant hasn’t budded yet.

  10. My Gran made the best potato salad. All I remember is having to be careful how much I ate because she added sugar right after cooking so it would soak into the potatoes. She also made the sauce that put it all together.

  11. Potato salad is one of the best things about summer. I don’t care for onions. My Potato salad is potatoes, boiled with the skins on and then peeled after they are cooked, or if red potatoes, not peeled just cut up. Chopped boiled eggs and cut up cucumber with lots of mayonnaise, salt and pepper. It is best freshly made before being chilled.

  13. My grandmother was the one to make the potato salad for any family get-togethers. Always made with mayoo but some mustard for taste. Haven’t made potato salad for years, but I always add so,e sweet pickle relish or even Sweet lime pickle juice.

  14. Our family’s potato salad is similar, but has fewer ingredients. It has potatoes, diced hard boiled eggs, finely diced white onions (I don’t like raw onions so usually put few in or none at all, using onion powder or onion salt instead), diced cucumber, mayo, and seasoned salt. It id good, but the cucumber can make leftovers watery. I make hot German potato salad in the winter time but not that often. I should make it more often because everyone loves it. If we are out or on the run, I sometimes pick up the mustard potato salad at our local grocery store. They make a good one.

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