Ice Cream Potato Salad

Over the weekend we went to our church picnic. Love those! It's a great time for getting together with other families and of course, to sample all of their favorite family recipes. My Dear Hubby and I made my Mother in Law's macaroni salad. Turned out very good and he was pleased to see there was hardly any of it left.


While the macaroni salad was delicious, I began to miss my family's potato salad. So, today, I decided to make it, even though I have a ton of other things on my list to work on. The above photo represents the basic ingredients I use, but not all of them.

First you have to get through the worst part, which is the peeling. I peeled almost the whole 5 lb bag... saving two of the largest potatoes for dinner on the grill one night this week. (I don't forsee much of the potato salad remaining 'til then.) Then I cut them up into smaller pieces to cut down on the cooking time. I use whatever kind of potato we have in the house, although I tend to lean toward the baking potatoes. Probably because they are bigger and you have less potatoes to peel. I know, this doesn't make sense. A five pound bag is a five pound bag.

There are going to be a few odd things we do that you might not see in other recipes. Just bear with me. Here is one of them. We add the eggs right in with the potatoes for boiling. Why dirty another pan? An old roommate I had used to put a small onion in with the water, which I have tried but this time I did not. (If you do this, toss the water logged onion as you are draining potatoes.)

Another key point when making this potato salad is to get all of the other ingredients "ready to go" because you only have a small window of opportunity to mix everything together after draining out the water. The key here is to add the ingredients while the potatoes are still WARM. They will soak up the mayo "sauce" like a sponge. The mayo mixture is simple. Hellman's mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, and one other ingredient I have added over the years that my Mother did not. (Just a smidge of spicy brown mustard, not too much!) I use half a jar to a whole jar of mayo (about 15 - 30 oz.) depending on how many potatoes, and I keep adding generous tablespoons of vinegar until the mayo looks more like a "sauce" and less like thick mayonnaise. It's all really a matter of taste.

It is also time to chop the onions. I LOVE LOVE LOVE using my Pampered Chef Zyliss chopper. It is my opinion that crying should not be a part of cooking. I don't like a lot of onions but if you go with a sweeter variety like vidalia, you can chop a little more. My Mother always used yellow onions. I never seem to have yellow onions in the house because Dear Hubby likes the vidalia.

Now, this is all being done while the potatoes were boiling with the eggs. You will remove the eggs before the potatoes are done. About 10 t0 15 minutes should be enough time to hard boil them. The potatoes should be soft enough for a fork to go through them and then they are ready to drain.

See the steam rising from the potatoes? The clock is ticking. You've got to hurry. Peel the eggs! (I boiled six.) Save one nice looking egg for slicing on the top.

Mix the potatoes (slice into smaller chunks), salt, pepper, onions, chopped eggs, mayo sauce until coated well. There is another ingredient that we use you won't find in many other recipes. Instead of celery, we use celery seed. Yep, celery seed. Freaks my Dear Hubby out because he thinks actual celery should be chopped up and mixed in there. But, this is my family's recipe and this is how we make it. He gets the macaroni salad.

And here it is...in all of it's glory. And I'll bet you are wondering why I called it "Ice Cream Potato Salad." It is because my Father thought it tasted so good, it was like eating ice cream! And luckily, my Dear Hubby agrees! But, don't try and order this at your favorite ice cream stand. LOL!

And also to note today...the giveaway package is now on it's way to the final destination. To Jen's house, home of Lipstick and Laundry. Since it is going priority it should get there within 2 - 3 days. I mailed it out yesterday with these other packages so it only has a day or two to go!


Hope she enjoys the goodies. I can't wait til the package arrives. Sometimes it is just as fun for the giver as it is for the receiver. I guess this is why we do these giveaways!

I also hope you enjoyed my potato salad post. I guess I really had a lot to say about it! Summer is my absolute favorite time of year! Feel free to share your favorite family summer recipe... I enjoy reading about them.