This potato salad makes a great crowd pleasure for pot lucks or a great side for summer grilling. I developed this recipe as a marriage of a baked potato and the type of potato salad I grew up on (mustard, mayo, pickles, eggs, and onions). Because I love both. The best of both worlds! It was also a great way to use our chives that have been doing great for a few months now in our garden.
You might think potato salad is very bad for you especially if you add bacon to it, but it can be not so bad if you use the right ingredients. The worst part of most potato salads are the bad fats in it. But if you use pasture raised bacon and cheese, and make your own olive oil mayo (which is so easy I swear), the fat in the salad will actually be good.
I started making my own mayo after I realized that all mayo in the store I could find (even organic brands or ones labelled olive oil) had Omega 6 fats in it, which most of us have to much of in proportion to Omega 3s. And what a shame not to use olive oil since it is a great fat that is hard to use for cooking since it's very unstable, and taste great too. Mayo, salad dressings, and marinera sauce is the easiest and safest ways to add more to your diet. Yet most manufactures will use soybean or canola oil (both of which are GMO unless organic to boot) instead because it's cheaper. Just remember Fat can be good as long as it's good fat.
The fat and protein (from the eggs and bacon) also help slow down the blood sugar spike from the potatoes (making the potatoes more GI friendly). This will still be a calorie dense meal, but meals with fat and protein fill us up fast because it causes leptin (our full hormone) to appear, unlike fat free sugar products that actually make us want more sweets.
Another easy way to make potato salad healthier is to make sure you use organic potatoes. I would suggest always buying organic potatoes even if you don't usually buy organic because it's one of the dirty dozen (one of the most heavily pesticide crops out of all crops).
Fully Loaded Baked Potato Salad
(serves 4-6)
Ingredients
- 2 pounds red organic potatoes, skin on, washed
- 4 large organic pasture raised hard boiled eggs (optional)
- 1 medium sized red onion diced
- 3/4 cups low fat organic sour cream (can omit if you can't have dairy)
- 1/2 cup olive oil mayonnaise
- 2 Tablespoons of pickle juice (can sub red or white vinegar) (optional)
- 2 tsp prepared mustard (optional)
- 1 teaspoon black pepper, freshly cracked
- 1/2 teaspoon pink salt why pink salt?
- 6 pieces uncured pasture raised bacon, cooked and chopped
- 4 green onions, sliced thin
- 4 oz of grass fed cheddar cheese (I get mine at Trader Joe's for under $6/lb optional)
Directions
- In a large pot of salted water (1 inch over potatoes), add potatoes. Bring to a boil over medium high heat and reduce heat to medium and cook until just fork tender (25-30 min). Remove from boiling water and cool. When cool enough to handle, cut into 1-inch cubes and toss in 2 tablespoons of pickle juice (this helps to get more flavour into the potatoes (they did this with vinegar on America's Test Kitchen, but I thought pickle juice was better which they did on their other cooking show Cooks Country).
- While potatoes are cooking and cooling, fry in bacon in a large cast iron or frying pan, remove to paper towel lined plate to drain. Strain bacon fat, reserve 3 Tablespoons in pan.
- Reheat bacon fat add diced red onions and cook until softened and fry off potatoes until light golden brown. Remove to paper towel lined plate to cool, season with a pinch of salt.
- Combine hard boiled eggs cut into 1 inch pieces, sour cream, mayonnaise, mustard, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Chop bacon and green onions. Combine potatoes and dressing, adjust seasoning as necessary. Refrigerate for 1 hour, top with bacon, onions, cheese and green onions before service.
Can be refrigerated for up to a day before serving
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