Amish Country Potato Salad Recipe

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With warmer weather just around the corner we thought we would bring you one of our favorite summertime recipes, Amish Country Potato Salad.

You may refer to this recipe as simply, potato salad. However, we consider it our favorite type of potato salad. Plus the name has a special connotation for us.

You see, we live just one hour south of one of the largest Amish communities in the country. Over the past several years we would visit the area often.

And every time that we stopped at a local market, you could be sure to find a huge display of meat and deli salads. The most popular being, of course, Amish Country Potato Salad.

It is sold in a square plastic container and the bright yellow color quickly catches your eye.

peeled potatoes — It is best to use a thin skinned potato such as Yukon Gold potatoes.

And it seems like every visitor that walks picks up a package and places it in their cart.

On one of our many visits, we decided to try it out for ourselves. When we got home and took our first bite, we knew that it was something special!

Jim isn’t a huge fan of potato or macaroni salad. In fact, he doesn’t prefer anything mayonnaise based at all. However, he even went for a second helping of this potato salad!

And this week, since we haven’t been to Amish country in several months, we decided that we would make our own version!

Soaking your red onions will get rid of that strong taste. However, this step is completely optional.

Amish Country Potato Salad Recipe

The first step in making any potato salad is to determine what type of potato to use. It is best to use thin skinned potatoes, such as Yukon Gold, golden, or red potatoes.

It is best to stay away from thick skinned, starchy potatoes such as Russet for this recipe. The potatoes will literally fall apart when you boil and mix your potato salad.

pickle juice in Amish Country Potato salad — Pickle juice is the secret ingredient in this recipe and it is tossed right on the potatoes, not in the dressing.

Next, for this recipe, we recommend peeling your potatoes. Then cut them into quarters and put them into a pot of water.

Now bring the potatoes to a boil and remove when fork tender and place in an ice water bath. This will help stop the cooking process.

While the potatoes are cooking, dice your onion and place in cold water. This step is optional, however, the water will help decrease the strong flavor of the onion.

diced pickles — You can use either dill or sweet pickles for this recipe.

When the potatoes are cool, drain the water and dice into bite size pieces and place in a large bowl. Now it is time to toss the potatoes into our secret ingredient, pickle juice!!!

Our Secret Ingredient

By tossing the potatoes directly in the pickle juice, they absorb the flavor better than if it was added to the dressing. This gives the Amish Country Potato Salad that delicious, and unique flavor.

Now mix your dressing ingredients and set aside. To the bowl with the potatoes, add the drained onions, diced celery, eggs and pickles.

Next pour the dressing on top and lightly toss and fold to coat the potatoes and to distribute the remaining ingredients.

Refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours before serving, which allows the flavors to meld into the perfect Potato Salad!

Enjoy!

Mary and Jim

Jim and Mary Competti have been writing gardening, DIY and recipe articles and books for over 15 years from their 46 acre Ohio farm. The two are frequent speakers on all things gardening and love to travel in their spare time.

As always, feel free to email us at thefarm@owgarden.com with comments, questions, or to simply say hello! You can sign up for our free email list in the subscribe now box in the middle of this article. Follow us on Facebook here : OWG Facebook. This article may contain affiliate links.

Amish Potato Salad

A light and creamy potato salad recipe that tastes just like the potato salad that you can buy from Ohio's Amish country.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Inactive Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours 25 minutes

Ingredients

3 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes
2 tablespoons dill or sweet pickle juice
3/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, optional
4 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 dill or sweet pickle spears, finely chopped

Instructions

Wash potatoes and peel potatoes and then cut into quarters. Place the potatoes in a stockpot and fill with enough water to cover potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook until fork tender (about 10 minutes).
While the potatoes are cooking cut onion and place in a bowl of water.
Prepare a large ice water bath. Once the potatoes are fork tender, drain and place in ice water bath for 3 minutes. Drain potatoes and when they are cool enough to handle, dice into small bite size pieces. Add pickle juice, toss gently and set aside to cool.
In a small bowl combine mayo, mustard, salt, black pepper, garlic and cayenne pepper (optional). Mix well.
Drain the onions.
Place the potatoes, eggs, onion, celery and pickles in a large bowl. Pour the dressing on top and gently stir and fold until thoroughly mixed. Garnish with Paprika (optional).
Chill 2 to 3 hours before serving but even better if you let it chill overnight.

Notes

Recipe courtesy of Old World Garden Farms

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

Serving Size:

1 grams
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 292Total Fat: 15gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 11gCholesterol: 82mgSodium: 446mgCarbohydrates: 34gFiber: 4gSugar: 6gProtein: 6g

Nutritional Information is to be used as a general guideline only . Nutritional calculations will vary from the types and brands of the products used.