Baked Potato Salad for Your Backyard Barbecue

Nothing screams potato salad like warm weather and eating outside in the backyard. Sure, you could buy that questionable yellow stuff behind the deli case at the supermarket, but I wouldn’t recommend it. This will make you much happier than any pickle relish and mustard-laden potato salad. Yes, I know you can get variety at the deli counter. They cost more than your standard yellow deli potato salad, though, and I don’t need a $15.00 container of potato salad.

The first time I was exposed to this potato salad was at an outdoor function such as the aforementioned one that took place at our friend Andrew’s house. His lovely wife had made said potato salad, and I was instantly in love and taken by its perfection. Perfect in my eyes, of course, but I wear corrective lenses, so there’s a bit of a blur there.

I have had these potatoes around for a while. They are screaming to be used.


About this many. Just cut off those bad parts. We don’t need them.


Now, dice them up. This will significantly reduce their cooking time, and if it’s nice out, you don’t want a big pot of boiling water on for longer than it has to be.


Take your pile of potato chunks and add it to…


…a pot of boiling water.


I am using one of these lovely egg sandwich toasters to hard boil my eggs. They are fantastic for breakfast and for easy hard boiled eggs as well.


Then comes the bacon. I have a preferred method of cooking bacon that involves the oven. You could also do it in the microwave or in a frying pan. I do not have a cool microwave bacon plate, so this is the way I’m going. It involves this lovely sheet pan covered in a sheet of parchment paper. This will make clean-up extremely easy.


Lay your bacon out and preheat your oven to 425º. Then stick it in there and forget about it for a good 12-15 minutes.


In the meantime, check on your potatoes. You want them to be soft when cut with a fork, but you don’t want to overcook them or you’ll end up with potato mush. This is after 16 minutes in the boiling water.


Immediately dump your boiled potatoes into a strainer and rinse with cold water to help them cool off. I then place them in a bowl and stick them into the fridge while I chop up the rest of the ingredients.


The rest of those ingredients happen to be:

flat-leaf parsley.


green onions

and those hard boiled eggs from earlier.


Pull your bacon out. I like to drain mine on a paper towel as it cools. It will crisp up and be perfect for crumbling.


Get your cooling potatoes out and add all your diced items.


For the dressing, grab some of this. You could go with other varieties, but the key here is to get a nice, thick ranch dressing. None of that soupy stuff. You actually have to scoop this out of the jar.


Plop it on and mix it up, add salt and pepper generously as you deem necessary.


Then you eat it. With whatever you’re cooking in the backyard. Brats, hamburgers, steaks, a portabella mushroom burger, grilled asparagus.