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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Even More Salads

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

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