Ditch Some Of The Mayo And Make Potato Salad With This Creamy Ingredient

There are all kinds of different ways to make potato salad. German potato salad includes vinaigrette dressing, bacon, and onions, while Italian potato salad lightens things up with olive oil. The American-style potato salad we're all familiar with, though, binds everything together with a creamy mayonnaise-based dressing. (Ina Garten adds buttermilk to her potato salad to make it a bit more tangy.) If you're looking to reduce your fat intake or maximize your daily dose of protein, there's another gloppy, white ingredient that can replace all or part of the mayo: cottage cheese, a once-unpopular ingredient that's been enjoying quite the glow-up in recent years.

Why cottage cheese? Well, because it's lighter and healthier than mayonnaise — a foodstuff in its own right rather than a mere condiment. Sure, it does tend to be rather lumpy, but if you find the lumps off-putting you can give it a whirl in the blender to smooth things out before using it as a mayonnaise replacement.

You don't need to ditch the mayo entirely when making cottage cheese potato salad. Some recipes call for keeping a small amount, like one part mayonnaise to six parts cottage cheese, and you can adjust that ratio upward or downward as you please. Other recipes combine the cottage cheese with bottled Italian dressing, oil and lemon juice, or just lemon juice alone (vinegar would also do the trick). A little bit of liquid is needed, though, since it allows the cottage cheese to blend better. It can also help to even out the consistency of the dressing if you don't use a blender to make it.

Most ingredients used in a standard potato salad will work just fine in one made with cottage cheese. Chopped celery, pickles, and onions add some crunch, while hard-boiled eggs would raise the protein content. You can season your salad with mustard, pepper, chives, dill, or any combination thereof. In fact, you could use a flavored cottage cheese since this product now comes in varieties like chive and everything bagel. It might be best to stick with the savory ones though, since peach or pineapple cream cheese may not play so well with potatoes.