Top Your Burgers With This Iconic Cookout Side For A Creamy Mouthwatering Makeover

Have you ever put potato salad on a burger? If not, why not? While at first glance it may sound like a curiosity-driven novelty, this is one of those ideas that makes more sense — and becomes more mouthwatering — the longer you think about it. Potato salad is already an iconic cookout side for burgers — particularly as barbecues don't lend themselves well to preparing French fries — and anyone who's ever enjoyed the manifold pleasures of a gravy-dipped Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich knows that foods that go well can often be elevated further by mashing them together between two pieces of bread.

Once you start counting down the ingredients, flavors, and combinations thereof shared by a well-laden burger and a superlative potato salad, the list never ends. Many, for example, wouldn't dream of having either a burger or a potato salad that lacked onions or pickles (though we'll stay out of the debate over whether dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, or pickle relish reigns supreme). A tangy yet creamy homemade Thousand Island dressing works equally well in a potato salad and as a condiment for your burger, or if you're more of a mustard person, imagine topping your patty with a mound of devilled egg potato salad.

The type of cold salad you may be most familiar with from cookouts would provide a pleasing contrast to the hot, seared burger fresh from the grill, but if you prefer to match heat with heat, you could opt for a warm German-style potato salad instead. Moreover, a good potato salad will already be a symphony of different flavors and textures, from sweet to salty, acidic to unctuous, and pretty much the only ones missing if eaten on its own would be the savory meatiness of flame-caramelized beef.

Naturally, the prospect of putting potato salad on a burger becomes less appealing if the potato salad itself is disappointing. If you have a tried and true recipe that always keeps everyone happy at the cookout, then by all means stick with it, but if you're feeling less confident, remember to consult our list of 17 mistakes commonly made when making potato salad, such as using the wrong type of potato, neglecting to season the potatoes after boiling, or being unadventurous with what other vegetables you include. Once you've fool-proofed yourself against these errors, there's still much else you might want to consider, as demonstrated in these 15 tips from celebrity chefs on how to make the ultimate potato salad (though if your budget doesn't quite extend to Gordon Ramsay's bright idea of spiking your salad with caviar and lobster, we wouldn't blame you).

If the thought of a potato salad burger appeals, remember to observe the standard food safety rule for potato salad at a cookout — keep it refrigerated until you need it, and don't leave it out too long. If the temperature reaches between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, this is when dangerous bacteria can begin to develop in food, which is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture advises moving foods like potato salad back to the refrigerator within two hours, or — if the temperature is over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, as it may well be at a summer cookout — within one hour. Beyond that, your only problem will be figuring out exactly how much potato salad to cram in your burger. This, we leave up to you — but we can't promise it won't get messy.