Bobby Flay's Top Tip For Perfectly Dressed Potato Salad
It's the ultimate picnic side – potato salad. It's creamy and luscious, and a great base for your favorite toppings like dill, scallions, or pitted olives. The key with any potato salad is to create a symphony of flavors and textures with each bite, otherwise you're just eating cold chunks of potato. The way this is achieved is two-fold.
First, you need to have mix-ins or toppings that make each bite unique and special. Some people like to add protein like chopped egg or diced bacon while others like to add herbs like chives or dill, or opt for more tangy additions like capers or diced pickle. The next key component to a delicious potato salad is a killer dressing on top of it.
Most dressings contain either mayonnaise or vinegar with some mustard to round it out and give it an earthy flavor. And when it comes to dressing a potato salad, chef Bobby Flay has a trick that can enhance the flavor even more — and it's so simple you might not believe it.
Dress Warm
According to a clip from Food Network's "Boy Meets Grill" on YouTube, Bobby Flay has a cooking tip for dressing his German potato salad so its flavor is perfectly balanced. The key is to dress it warm. Flay explains that adding flavor to potatoes when they're warm and more porous means you'll have richer potatoes. Dressing cold potatoes means the fiber of the potato will have closed a bit and will be harder to permeate.
Taste of Home notes that while dressing a potato salad warm is ideal, it doesn't work for every recipe. Mayonnaise-based dressings will fall apart when they come into contact with warm potatoes, leaving a greasy texture behind. So, if you're using a mayo-based sauce, toss the potatoes in a little bit of apple cider vinegar first to add some tang to them while they are warm and porous. Then you can add your mayo-based sauce. If you're making a vinegar-based sauce like in Flay's German Potato salad, you can add the dressing, along with additions like bacon, scallions, and mustard, to warm potatoes, per Food Network.
Next time you're in the mood for potato salad, try a German style-one and dress it warm for a more intense flavor. And if you're feeling experimental trying serving it warm too!