Get Ready for Summer Salads! Potato Salad with Eggs and Dill

Lately I’ve been talking about refreshing your grilling skills as we get closer to Memorial Day and the official start of summer.  Very important of course, but one area you shouldn’t neglect in your preparation are salads.  I was inspired to make the first potato salad of the summer since we had absolutely gorgeous Chicago weather this week.  Oh and there was also a 50 lb bag of potatoes in our basement.

Well not a full bag to be honest.  For some reason our landlords were given this huge bag of potatoes as a gift and told us to take as many as we liked.  No problem!  I supposed I should have been making a lot of different potato dishes this past month but they’re those smallish red ones, which I find you can only do so much with.  Good for roasting with garlic and rosemary or for boiling and tossing with some butter and herbs.  Not the best type of potato for all those fancy French recipes like dauphinoise.

So, lots of potatoes, very warm Chicago May weather, good enough reason to whip up a batch of potato salad.  Now I understand that everyone’s mother/grandmother makes the best potato salad and my mom’s is obviously one of them.  She always puts peas in hers and I like that.  More importantly Cheryl accepts and likes them in the potato salad too.  As she likes to remind me every so often “it’s all about me, honey.”  Whether or not you go with peas, I think the one absolute key ingredient you cannot leave out are eggs.  They add volume and creaminess to the dish as well as a nice yellow color from the yolks.  And who doesn’t like a good egg in a salad?

A note about the onions.  I used red onions in this recipe but my mom uses regular ones in hers and recommends adding them to the potatoes right after you drain them.  It softens the onions a little and seems to make them less sharp.

Potato salad is one summertime dish you can make your own.  After you get the foundation of potatoes, mayo, and eggs, you can add whatever herbs and seasoning you want.  I usually add some smoky Spanish paprika but for this batch I added fresh dill to the mix.  To me, dill is one of those herbs that just screams summertime, and it worked well.  If you’re not a fan of dill add whatever herbs or seasonings you like.

Potato Salad with Eggs

• 3-3 ½ lb potatoes
• 4 hard-boiled eggs
• 2 tsp salt
• ¼ C chopped red onion
• 1 C peas
• ¾ – 1 C mayonnaise
• Fresh dill

Place the eggs in a large pot and cover with water and bring to a boil.  Once the water boils, remove the pot from the heat, cover and let sit for 15 minutes.  Remove eggs from water and allow to cool enough for you to handle them.  Remove eggshells and set aside.

Wash and peel the potatoes.  Cut into pieces about the size of your fingertip, 1 inch dice.  Place in a large pot of salted water.  Bring water to boil over med-high heat.  Cook until potatoes are tender but not mushy.  Depending on the size of your pieces this should be between 5-10 minutes after the water starts boiling.  Drain and allow to cool a bit.

Dice the hard-boiled eggs and add the whites and yolks to the potatoes.

Add the onions, peas, and mayonnaise and mix well with a rubber spatula.  Add salt to taste.  Add as much fresh dill as you want.

Chill in the refrigerator for an hour or two before serving.