There are so many recipes for potato salad with mayonnaise, and I bet each and every single one of those is supposed to be the best. This is my Grandma’s “Westphalian Potato Salad” recipe, which for me is the best and tastes super delicious! My grandmother and my mom have always prepared the classic German Potato Salad like this and so do I. For this salad, I only use waxy potatoes, preferably the “Linda” or “Sieglinde” variety.
Grandma’s german potato salad with mayonnaise
These potatoes are long or round in shape and have a yellow flesh and smooth skin, they are just perfect for potato salad. The slices do not fall apart and have a strong flavor! For the meaty part of the
recipe, I like to use a “Bologna” or “Baloney” sausage from the butcher. If you prefer the potato salad vegetarian, just leave out the sausage.
Hard-boiled eggs add a nice texture and provide a thick and creamy dressing, and I season the salad with salt and pepper. The recipe is quite simple to prepare. The most important thing is that the salad gets enough time to infuse and unfold its taste.
How to make the best “German Potato Salad”
It´s best to put the potatoes on with cold water and then boil them with skin. After boiling, you need to let the potatoes cool down a bit, then peel and slice them. Prepare the mayonnaise dressing while the potatoes are cooking. You can then mix in the lukewarm sliced or diced potatoes with the mayonnaise and let them infuse.
I have changed our family recipe a bit and use spring onion instead of regular fresh onion for the salad. Since raw onions tend to ferment, spring onions offer a great advantage, especially when I make a large amount of the potato salad for parties and store it for 2-3 days in the refrigerator.
Saving it up 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator in general is no problem at all, quite the opposite, the longer the salad is left to infuse, the better it tastes in the end. That´s also why it´s important to let it soak through for at least a few hours. My grandmother used to season the salad with salt and pepper only, I always add 1
teaspoon of mustard to the mayonnaise. This “Westphalian Potato Salad with Mayonnaise” from my Grandmother is often requested by our daughter Anni.
German Potato Salad with sausages
Since she and her husband are in the middle of a house remodel, she is always looking for something hearty to serve to their hard-working helpers. That said, I don’t expect the requests to stop once the renovation is complete, because this quickly prepared German Potato Salad is also a nice addition for the perfect BBQ on sunny summer days. My husband doesn’t like this “Westphalian Potato Salad” with mayonnaise, onion, hard-boiled eggs and chopped pickles at all, although he´s from Westphalia as well.
For him, I always prepare a “Swabian Potato Salad” with vegetable stock. Unfortunately, I can’t convince him that potato salad with mayonnaise is a real classic and tastes super delicious, but I guess we all have our irreversible opinion as to what kind of potato salad is best. My grandmother always used homemade mayonnaise for the salad.
But since this creamy potato salad is an easy crowd-pleaser and I often prepare large amounts for parties, get-together or school and kindergarten events of my grandchildren, it happens that the salad is unrefrigerated for a while, and I find it a lot safer to use longer lasting store-bought
mayonnaise.
But whenever I make a small amount of the salad, I do prepare it with homemade mayonnaise.
Here in Westphalia potato salad is classically served with “Sauerländer Bockwurst”, a thick boiled sausage from a Mid-Mountain Region in Westphalia called “Sauerland”. I prefer “Vienna Sausages” or meatballs with it. Potato salad is a family-favorite for many Germans and we love to make potato salad for the holidays. It’s a very popular tradition because it’s easy and not very time-consuming and will leave much needed time for other Christmas preparations
Of course, there are even discussions within the family about the best potato salad recipe. One grandmother makes it this way and the other just a little differently, and in the end, it feels like world’s in between. At my childhood home, we usually ate “Fondue” or “Pfefferpotthast” on Christmas Eve, but I know of a lot of friends and acquaintances that still keep up with the German Potato Salad tradition and see it as a special dish to begin the holidays.
This recipe brings up a good 4 kilos of potato salad, which I standardly use for around 10 persons, and I serve it with Viennese Sausages or grilled German “Bratwurst”. You can easily halve or double the recipe to get the amount of salad you need. I always peel and cut the potatoes lukewarm to mix it into the dressing, because I find that the potatoes then absorb m
ore flavor. After preparation, the potato salad must be refrigerated and lasts for up to 3 days. It is important to season the potato salad with salt and pepper again after some infusion time, since the potatoes and the dressing tend to absorb the spices. Here are some frequently asked questions and my answers to them:
How to make the best “German Potato Salad
- What potatoes do you use for your German Potato Salad – I only use waxy potatoes,
preferably the “Sieglinde” or “Linda” variety. - How long does the potato salad last? – With a store-bought mayonnaise it lasts 2-3 days in
the refrigerator. - Why do you eat potato salad on Christmas Eve? – Potato salad is very easy to prepare and
will leave you a lot of time for other important Christmas preparations. Also, Christmas Eve is
traditionally the last day of fasting, so many families eat potato salad on Christmas Eve as a
tradition!
I hope you enjoy reading, strolling through and trying out my cooking and baking recipes!
Equipment
- 1 large pot
- 1 large bowl
- 1 cutting board
- 1 knife
- 1 Spoon
- 1 whisk
Ingredients
- 2,5 Kilo potatos 5 .4 lbs
- 250 g Bologna or Baloney (in one piece) 0,55116 lbs
- 350 g pickles (thick gherkins) 0,77162 lbs
- 600 g Mayonnaise miracle whip 1,32277 lbs
- 200 ml Pickle water
- 8 eggs
- 3 tsp Salt
- Salt and Pepper
- 2 spring onions
- 1 tsp mustard spicy
- 1 pinch sugar
- Finely chop the parsley and sprinkle over the salad as decoration
Instructions
- The best is to place all the needed ingredients together at the beginning. Boil the potatoes with skin in water. Depending on the size, about 30 minutes.
- Put the eggs in cold water and hard-boil them for about 12-15 minutes. After boiling, immediately rinse the eggs in cold water and let them cool in cold water. Chop seven eggs and place them in a large bowl. Keep one egg to garnish the salad before serving it.
- Finely chop the pickles and then dice the sausage.
- Mix the mayonnaise with the diced gherkins, the mustard, the gherkin water, the sausage dices and the diced eggs and 2 tsp salt in the bowl. Then season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar.
- Gently add the warm sliced or cubed potatoes to the mayonnaise. The potatoes will take on the flavor of the marinade better if they are still lukewarm.
- Add the lukewarm potatoes to the mayonnaise dressing.
- Mix everything well. After that, chop the spring onion very finely and mix it into the salad. Then season again with mustard and salt.
- The salad should infuse for at least 1 hour. Please remember: the more time the salad gets to unfold its taste, the better it will be in the end. I always find that the German Potato Salad with Mayonnaise tastes best if you leave it to infuse in the fridge overnight. Make sure to taste the salad again after some time of infusion and add a little more seasoning if needed.
Garnish
- Slice the leftover hard-boiled egg and garnish the potato salad with the egg slices and some parsley before serving.
