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Smoky Red Potato Salad Recipe

Creamy Smoky Red Potato Salad is filling, flavorful and delicious. This potato salad is made with red boiler potatoes, and has a rich, smoky element to the salad dressing.

This salad is amazing as a grill side or light lunch. With it’s play on the traditional simplicity of a potato salad, it brings an unexpected and delicious dish to your bbq or potluck.

Reds are our favorite salad potato and we are walking you through how to make red potato salad in a simple, easy way. We have added instructions for how to prep and cook your potatoes and the eggs in an Instant Pot for easier assembly and fewer dishes.

Smoky Red Potato Salad
Smoky Red Potato Salad

Our other favorite potato salad is spring medley potato salad. That salad has a red potato base as well but, it includes lots of other veggies and grapes to shake up the potato salad flavor profile.

The unique thing about this smoky potato salad is the smoky salad dressing. One of our favorite kitchen seasonings is Sweet Mesquite by Kirkland.

Or, look for a dry seasoning mix in the grocery store like McCormicks Smoke House Maple seasoning. It’s a close second to Sweet Mesquite but not as good for this recipe.

Smoky Potato Salad
Smoky Red Potato Salad with Sweet Mesquite.

Here are  the Sweet Mesquite ingredients for you so you can see what’s in it

Sea salt, spices (black pepper, chili pepper, red pepper, oregano), dehydrated vegetables (onion, garlic, red bell pepper), demerara sugar, natural mesquite smoke flavor, citric acid, silicon dioxide added to prevent caking.

Smoky Red Potato Salad Recipe

Potato salad doesn’t need too much stuff in it. It is very versatile and forgiving, so go ahead and experiment with this recipe. But, make it from the recipe at least one time so you know what you want to tweak for your family.

If you love a recipe for red potato salad with dill, the dill pickles are a wonderful option to the fresh herb. We love the added crunch and refreshing flavor that they bring.

If you want to bring up the smoky flavor, add 1 cup of chopped cooked bacon or honey ham. The added smoky overtones and meat would be great in this recipe!

There are two options for the salad dressing. Make it with our healthy homemade mayonnaise recipe for the creamiest dressing result. The greek yogurt sour cream option is also very good if you’re not a mayo fan.

Smoky Potato Salad
Smoky Red Potato Salad

How to save some time and effort

Using your instant pot to cook the potatoes and the eggs is a great hack for this recipe. It will make the prep for potato salads much easier than the standard pot of water on the stove. So if you have an instant pot, life just got easier again.

INSTANT POT HACK

Prep the potatoes by cutting and peeling as desired. If the potatoes are uneven in size cut the large ones in half.

  • Wash and prep the potatoes.
  • Add 1 Cup water to the bottom of your instant pot.
  • Set the trivet over the water.
  • Stack the potatoes in the instant pot.
  • Add whole unpeeled raw eggs now if there is room. Just set them right on the potatoes.
  • Lock and seal the lid. Set it to manual on high pressure for 5 minutes.
  • When the pressure cooker is done allow to natural release 5 minutes. Now quick release.
  • Open the lid and remove the eggs to ice cold water. Peel them under cold running water. It’s very easy to peel instant pot boiled eggs! Chill in the fridge.
  • fF the potatoes are done to your desired tenderness, pour the cooked potatoes into a large bowl to cool. Refrigerate until chilled.
  • If the potatoes need more time in the instant pot. Add 1/2 Cup water and set the pot on manual high pressure for another 5 minutes. Now quick release and check again.

If you do not have an instant pot follow these steps

Prep the potatoes and peel as desired. If the potatoes are uneven in size cut the large ones in half.

  • Set a large pot on the stove with about 8 quarts of water, the potatoes and eggs at high heat.
  • Once boiling reduce the stove heat to medium and cook about 20 minutes until potatoes are tender.
  • Make sure the potatoes are tender to the middle by piercing a few with your sharp thin knife when boiling.
  • Remove from heat and drain the potatoes and hard boiled eggs.

Do not over boil the potatoes or this salad will be a really great friend of mashed potatoes. You do want to boil the eggs until completely hard in the middle, about 20 minutes on medium heat. Cool the potatoes and eggs completely before assembling the salad.

  • Peel and chop the eggs small
  • Chop the potatoes into bite sized pieces. Leave the skins on for better nutrition and some color pop:
  • You can leave on the skins if you don’t mind them. As long as they stay on the potato when it’s cut up. Remove the large straggling pieces of skin that float in the salad.
  • Chop fine all the other vegetables and add ins.  Load all of these ingredients into a large bowl and lightly mix.
Smoky Potato Salad
Smoky Red Potato Salad

Making the dressing

The flavor comes from the dressing, and it can be played with a little to get the right flavor for you. A few tips that we want you to remember are as follows.

  • Whisk the ingredients together and assemble, then refrigerate
  • This is a forgiving, versatile salad so don’t be afraid to play around with it
  • Potatoes absorb seasoning flavors and moisture, so it will intensify the longer it sits
  • Best to let it set and then adjust the seasonings before serving if the flavor needs brightening

The thing about salad dressing is that it sets the tone for the flavor of this whole creation. You can go a lot of different ways with this. Just be careful not to mix up the flavor tones too much.

Creamy Smoky Potato Salad Recipe

This flavorful potato salad is made with red boiler potatoes and a smoky twist in the salad dressing.

The dressing can be altered to make it a healthy red potato salad, simply by making your own mayo, or substituting it for healthier plain Greek yogurt.

Smoky Potato Salad
Yield: 15 servings

Smoky Potato Salad

Prep Time: 45 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
chilling time: 1 hour
Total Time: 2 hours 5 minutes

Creamy Smoky Potato Salad. Filling, flavorful delicious potato salad made with red boiler potatoes and a smoky twist in the salad dressing. This potato salad is amazing as a grill side or light lunch.  I've added Instant Pot hacks to make this process very easy for you.

Ingredients

Salad ingredients:

  • 3 lbs red boiler potatoes
  • 10 hard boiled eggs
  • 6 baby garlic dill pickles-chopped small
  • 2 ribs celery-minced
  • 1/2 Cup onion-minced
  • 1 large sweet bell or Pasilla pepper

Dressing Ingredients:

  • 2 Cups Mayonnaise OR, 1 Cup Greek yogurt and 1 Cup sour cream
  • 4 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
  • 2 Tablespoons Smoked Paprika or Sweet Mesquite seasonings
  • 1/2 tsp Dijon Mustard
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Wash and peel (IF peeling) the potatoes.

Stove Top Instructions:

  1. MY FAVORITE WAY TO BOIL POTATOES AND EGGS ON THE STOVE:
  2. Set a large pot on the stove with about 8 quarts of water, the potatoes and eggs at high heat. 
  3. Once boiling Reduce the stove heat to medium and cook about 20 minutes until potatoes are tender.
  4. Make sure the potatoes are tender to the middle by piercing a few with your sharp thin knife when boiling. 
  5. Remove from heat and drain the potatoes and hard boiled eggs. (I dump mine into a large colander).
  6. Remove the eggs to a big pot of very cold water.
  7. Cool potatoes and eggs thoroughly so they are easy to handle.

For The Instant Pot:

  1. Add 1 Cup water to the bottom of your instant pot.
  2. Set the trivet over the water.
  3. Stack the potatoes (I leave small one whole and cut big ones in half) in the instant pot.
  4. Add whole unpeeled raw eggs now if there is room. Just set them right on the potatoes.
  5. Lock and seal the lid. Set it to manual on high pressure for 5 minutes.
  6. When the pressure cooker is done allow to natural release 5 minutes. Now quick release.
  7. Open the lid and remove the eggs to ice cold water. Peel them under cold running water. It's SO easy to peel instant pot boiled eggs! Chill in the fridge until fridge temp.
  8. IF the potatoes are done to your desired tenderness, Pour the cooked potatoes into a large bowl to cool. Refrigerate until chilled.
  9. IF the potatoes need more time in the instant pot. Add 1/2 Cup water and set the pot on manual high pressure for another 5 minutes. Now quick release and check again. They should be done. Chill and proceed with recipe.

Salad Assembly:

  1. Mince the other vegetables fine
  2. Cut the eggs and potatoes to small bite size pieces
  3. Combine eggs, potatoes and other vegetables into a large bowl. Stir thoroughly and cool in the fridge.

Salad Dressing:

  1. Whisk together the dressing ingredients and pour over the cooled potato mixture.
  2. Refrigerate until serving time. Enjoy!

Nutrition Information

Yield

15

Serving Size

1

Amount Per Serving Calories 399Total Fat 30gSaturated Fat 7gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 21gCholesterol 151mgSodium 293mgCarbohydrates 22gFiber 2gSugar 3gProtein 10g

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Even More Salads

Be sure to explore our extensive library of salads starting with these popular ones!

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The Spice People

Thursday 10th of August 2017

Now that's what we call smoky creamy! Thanks for sharing this unique blend of ingredients.

Diane

Thursday 10th of August 2017

Hi Spice People. Thanks for stopping by. This is an old family favorite. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Have a great day!

Manila Spoon

Friday 5th of August 2016

That looks so creamy and tasty! A must-try!

Diane

Friday 5th of August 2016

Hi Abigail, This is a really good potato salad recipe if you like a bit of smoke in it. Enjoy!

Megan @ MegUnprocessed

Wednesday 3rd of August 2016

Family recipes are the best! You are so lucky to have a bountiful fresh crop!

Diane

Thursday 4th of August 2016

Hi Megan, We feel the same way. Our garden provides us with so much great food!

Lane & Holly @ With Two Spoons

Tuesday 2nd of August 2016

This looks SO good-I love potato salad!

Diane

Wednesday 3rd of August 2016

Thank you Lane & Holly, This is a family favorite :)

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