This Creamy Cheese Belongs In Your Next Potato Salad - It Doubles The Flavor

Summer cookout season or otherwise, there's no reason to abandon the comforts of homemade potato salad. In fact, there's no better time to experiment with a new variation than the present. If your usual recipe for this classic side dish is starting to feel a little familiar, try preparing your next batch with the creamy addition of goat cheese to double the flavor. 

If you're unfamiliar with goat cheese — sometimes referred to by its French name, chèvre — it carries a distinct, tangy taste and a notable richness, despite being low in fat compared to many other cheeses. On its own, goat cheese can have a slight bitterness, but when used in other dishes, it can emphasize the flavor of the ingredients that surround it, making it perfect for a well-balanced potato salad, whether warm or cold. 

It is worth bearing in mind that fresh goat cheese tastes different from aged, so it's wise to sample whichever kind you have beforehand, in order to judge how much to add to your recipe. If you wish to avoid an excessively decadent salad, you may eschew a mayonnaise-based dressing in favor of something lighter, such as a mixture of wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, Dijon mustard, and extra virgin olive oil, or optionally, yogurt, crème fraîche, or sour cream. Though it can be crumbled in, to make sure the flavor of the goat cheese is distributed evenly throughout the salad, whisk it into the dressing before tossing with potatoes and other ingredients.

Before heading down to your local cheese market, take a moment to on the different types of goat cheese, so as to find one which best suits your palate. For a cleaner, slightly lemony taste and a creamier texture, for example, go with fresh chèvre. If you're looking for something earthier, with nutty notes, you can instead opt for a firmer Catalan Garrotxa.

Keeping your potato salad recipe simple will allow the goat cheese to stand out, so no further ingredients are really necessary other than cooked spuds, finely chopped onion, and fresh herbs such as parsley or dill. For both greater complexity and textural contrast, diced pickles or thinly sliced radishes would also work well. However, if you're in the mood for something more elaborate and feel like really experimenting, you can peruse these 18 show-stealing potato salad recipes, and decide which would benefit from a goat cheese upgrade.

If these possibilities have already fired up your imagination, remember that goat cheese is far from the only specialty cheese that can be rewardingly incorporated into this classic side dish. At Tasting Table, we recommend blue cheese as a bold way to elevate your next batch of potato salad, but understand it may be divisive. For those who cannot get enough of garlic and herbs, and also want a cheese that can be mixed in smoothly, another excellent option would be a moist, flavorful potato salad featuring Boursin, which is sufficiently creamy that it can even be used as a substitute for a mayonnaise-based dressing.