This Southern Potato Salad recipe is a delicious side perfect for casual suppers and cookouts! Potato salad is an easy make ahead favorite!
This potato salad recipe is a simple, classic side dish that’s so easy to make. It is a favorite year round – from summer cookouts to potlucks to a southern Sunday meal. Potato Salad goes so well with everything from hamburgers and chicken to other side dishes like fried okra and baked beans.
When I was a girl I loved being the taste tester when Mama made her potato salad. What a lucky job it was because her Southern Potato Salad is the best! She was asked to make it for every cookout or family reunion because everyone loved it. And my family requested it for so many suppers and family gatherings too. So I got to test it a lot.
Southern Potato Salad Recipe
This potato salad recipe has been in my family for so many years. My great grandmother made it by this recipe and passed it down through the generations. Mama taught my sister and me how to make it and it’s always been our go-to recipe.
Best Potatoes for Southern Potato Salad
You need to use starchy potatoes that get a little bit soft when you cook them. I prefer Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, but I most often use Russets. A waxy potato won’t do for this southern favorite, so get one that will get somewhat soft.
How to Make Potato Salad
To make this recipe you will need these ingredients.
Southern Potato Salad Ingredients
- Potatoes (Russets preferably)
- Eggs
- Onion
- Dill Pickles
- Yellow Mustard
- Mayonnaise (not the sweet dressing type)
- Salt
Cook potatoes. Start by scrubbing and peeling 3 pounds of potatoes. Cube them, add to cold water and boil until tender enough to pierce with a fork, but not until they are mushy. Drain well once they are done.
Boil eggs. At the same time, hard boil 6 eggs and then peel them once they’re done. Chop the eggs in preparation for the salad.
Dice onion and pickles. While the potatoes are boiling, dice your onion and dill pickles.
Combine. Stir together the drained potatoes, chopped eggs, diced onion, diced pickles and salt with the mayonnaise and mustard until creamy. Add more mustard, mayo and even pickles to taste.
Taste test. Make sure your tasting spoons are lined up and at the ready. You will want to have them for your own taste tests!
Once you’ve completed your potato salad, you can either serve right away or refrigerate to serve later.
Make Ahead Favorite
My family’s Southern Potato Salad recipe is one that is delicious made the day of serving, but is a great make-ahead dish as well. Just keep it tightly covered and refrigerated until ready to serve. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Perfect for Cookouts, Picnics and Suppers
You’ll find this dish served at most family get-togethers in my family – from holidays like Easter alongside my Cola-Glazed Ham to reunions to cookouts to Sunday suppers! It’s a great potluck dish anytime, too. Potato salad is delicious with chicken, beef, and pork and is a dish that everyone in my family loves!
More Delicious Side Dishes and Salads
Here are a few more scrumptious sides for summer cookouts, potlucks and family suppers to try! Many are make ahead too!
Here’s my family’s Potato Salad recipe. It’s a special favorite!
Southern Potato Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 pounds boiled potatoes peeled and cubed
- 6 boiled eggs chopped
- 1 medium onion diced
- 4 medium dill pickles diced
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup yellow mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients together and mix until well-combined and creamy. Add more mayonnaise and mustard depending on tastes.
Video
Notes
Store potato salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.Â
Nutrition Information
Enjoy!
Robyn xo
Making this recipe today, only difference is I will be adding some sour cream to my mayo and some chopped celery.Â
I hope you enjoy it, Linda! It’s one of our favorites! xo
When I was a teenager my best friends mother made her potato salad this way with dill pickles instead of sweet relish. This was back in the 1960’s and brings back so many wonderful memories. Any relations to Sue and Wilbur Horn??
I don’t know your friend’s parents but this is the way my mother has always made her potato salad. No sweet relish for us!
Robyn,
This is by far the best potato salad I’ve ever eaten! I make it all during the year, but make it so often in the summer! We love it!
Thanks for sharing this recipe! It is delicious!!!
Thanks, Leigh!
This is my absolute favorite potato salad!! It’s the only one I will make after I found your recipe several years ago.  Thanks!
Thanks, Misty! So glad you love this potato salad as much as we do!xo
My husband is the cornbread dressing taster in our house before it goes in the oven. lol Love the potato salad recipe. Especially that you use dill pickles. “Don’t be putting no sweet pickles in my tater salad!” 🙂 Thanks Robin!
Glad you like the potato salad, Parrish! I like the dill pickles better, too!
The ‘recipe’ for our potato salad was in Mom’s head too. Very similar to this. We grew up on Miracle Whip and still don’t care for mayo so Miracle Whip and yellow mustard base. After I left home it was ‘by guess and by golly’ until I got it right. It really still is as I don’t measure anything and go by taste and how big of a dish I want to make. Mom used a bit of sweet pickle juice in hers. I use a tiny bit of sugar on the end of a spoon. DH is the designated tester here. He could eat potato salad every week I think. 😉
Karol, my mother has told me that one of her grandmothers made potato salad with sweet pickles and juice, too but without mustard. She was always the tester for her grandmother’s potato salad. It’s funny that she never made that version when I was growing up.
Taste just like my grandma use to make, talk about wonderful memories in every bite. Definitely will be a regular in our house!
Thank you, April. I love these recipes that our grandmothers made and the memories they bring back.
This is the way my family makes potato salad. Dill pickles instead of sweet. Sometimes I add sliced green olives.
Simple and delicious
Thanks, Katina!
This was the exact southern potato salad that I was searching from my childhood memory. Delicious.
Susie, I’m happy you found this recipe. This is the one my mother has always made.