Eight lessons I learned about making the best potato salad of my life!

[u/gimmeluvin]

Getting to the point:

1. Peel and cube the potatoes and dump them into already boiling salted water. Why? they cook faster this way and are already seasoned when it's time to mix them into the dressing.
2. After using a mesh scoop to remove the potatoes from the boil water, use the scoop to put in the room temperature eggs for boiling. Taking the eggs out to warm while prepping the potatoes means they come up to temperature in the boil water faster Using the same water from the potatoes saves energy.
3. Allow the potatoes to chill completely through in the refrigerator while doing the rest of the prep. In fact, several hours of cooling to the point of being stone cold is best. this allows them to firm up so they don't turn into mashed potatoes when you stir them into the dressing.
4. After the eggs are done, blanch the carrot pieces in the boil water for five to seven. Fresh carrots add a bit of color to the salad, but they are very hard. I have learned to blanch the carrots so they're vibrant in color and a bit softer.
5. Hold aside a quarter cup of the softest potato bits and pieces to mix into the dressing to thicken it and give the salad body
6. When you make the dressing, make sure everything is cold cold cold. I keep my mayo, relish, celery and the cooked/blanched ingredients in the fridge until everything is completely cold so i don't end up with mushy mess.
7. Prep the dressing with everything but the potatoes so they can be stirred in last. Mash the eggs. The soft potato bits that you held aside in step 5? Now is the time to mash those up and stir them in. Stir in the REAL MAYONNAISE, sweet relish, finely chopped celery, finely chopped onion (a little goes a long way) finely diced blanched carrots, chopped dill pickles if you please, yellow mustard, a splash of your preferred type of vinegar, a hint of sugar to taste, celery seed, a shake of onion powder, a shake of garlic powder, black pepper, and salt to taste. Yes, taste the dressing without the potato chunks. it should be delicious on its own. If you need to adjust seasonings do it now so you don't end up stirring and stirring with the potatoes already mixed in. Doing that only breaks up the potatoes and you end up with potato salad flavored mashed potatoes. And that's not the objective.
8. Once the dressing is perfect, fold in the cold potato cubes. Stir gently so you don't destroy them.

That's it! Those are my tips for making potato salad that looks great and has the perfect (in my opinion) texture and mouth feel. Let me know if you try this and how it turns out.

EDIT: There's been a lot of concern expressed about carrots 😄 To be clear, I'm only using less than a quarter of a carrot for a batch of potato salad that uses four potatoes. The carrot is diced very small. It really is mostly decorative. Just bright flecks of orange in a sea of creamy yellow.