Your Next Potato Salad Is In Desperate Need Of This Steakhouse Twist

Potato salad is one of those perfect comfort foods, but even a classic can start to feel boring sometimes. Enter the steakhouse twist: loaded baked potato recipes reimagined as potato salads. Picture classic toppings like sour cream, scallions, crispy bacon, and cheese, but mixed with creamy chilled potatoes. Just listing the ingredients makes it obvious how tasty this would be (unlike store-bought potato salad, which you shouldn't bother buying.)

The trick to pulling it off is paying attention to temperature. Since you're taking a hot recipe and reimagining it as a cold dish, the ingredients need to be treated differently. For example, mixing cooked bacon with dressing will soften its texture, so you want to make sure the bacon is extra crispy to compensate. Or, add the bacon as a topping just before serving rather than stirring it into the salad.

For the scallions and cheese, don't add them into the salad until the potatoes are completely cool. Any heat left over from cooking will cause the cheese to get weepy or even start to melt, while the scallions will release unwanted moisture into your salad and lose their crunch. The heat and moisture from the spuds can also make the dressing too watery, so it's best to wait to make the salad until all the cooked ingredients have cooled.

Of course, it's not just the add-ins that need thought; the potatoes are just as important. It all starts with picking superior potatoes for a creamy potato salad and preparing them properly. It's key to begin cooking them in a pot of cold water because raising the temperature slowly cooks them evenly without the outer layer getting mushy and water-logged. You can even bake your potatoes in the oven to bring in another layer of loaded baked potato flavor.

After cooking, the potatoes need to cool — and I mean really cool. Spread the drained spuds onto a flat surface, and give them the time and space they need to release all that steam so that moisture doesn't end up trapped in your salad. Once all of your ingredients are cooked and cooled, most of the effort is over. You can mix everything together however you want. Add in extras like chives, sauteed onions, or crumbled blue cheese, or switch up the dressing with grainy mustard, prepared horseradish, or whatever else floats your boat.

Loaded potato salad is particularly great during the summer. Paired with juicy grilled steak, glazed ribs, or charred vegetables, it brings a cooling, creamy element to the meal and helps combat the heat. It's also great for big-batch cooking, and, since there's no reheating involved, you can add it to any meal in seconds.