Potato Dishes
Potato Salad
Small new potatoes dressed while still warm in olive oil and white wine vinegar, then folded with mayonnaise, shallots, capers, chopped gherkins, chives and parsley.
- Serves 6
- Hands-on 15 min
- Cook 20 min
- Dress the potatoes warm
- Keeps 2 days in the fridge
- British
Method
Put the potatoes (1 kg) in a pan of cold salted water, bring to the boil and simmer for 12–15 minutes, until just tender when pierced with a knife. Drain well.
While the potatoes are still warm, toss them in a large bowl with the oil (2 tbsp), vinegar (1 tbsp), shallots (2 shallots) and some salt and pepper. Leave to cool for 20 minutes; warm potatoes soak up the dressing.
Mix the mayonnaise (70 g) with the mustard (1 tsp), capers (1 tbsp) and gherkins (3).
Fold the mayonnaise mixture through the cooled potatoes with most of the chives (a little) and parsley (a little). Check the seasoning, scatter with the rest of the herbs and serve at room temperature.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
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See also
Chef’s notes
- Waxy new potatoes (such as Charlotte or Jersey Royals) keep their shape; floury potatoes break up.
- Fold in the mayonnaise only once the potatoes are cool, or it will turn oily.
- For an American-style salad, add 3 chopped hard-boiled eggs and a stick of finely chopped celery, as the most-rated Allrecipes versions do.
- Take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before serving: cold dulls the flavour.
How this recipe was developed
We compared Matt Tebbutt’s classic potato salad on BBC Good Food with the two most-rated potato salads on Allrecipes.
- Warm potatoes, sharp dressing. Matt Tebbutt (BBC Good Food, 4.7/5 from 135 ratings) dresses small new potatoes with olive oil, white wine vinegar and shallots; we do this while they are still warm.
- Capers and cornichons. Tebbutt adds capers and cornichons with the mayonnaise; we keep both, with the capers optional.
- Mustard. Allrecipes’ Old-Fashioned Potato Salad (4.6/5 from 1,443 ratings) adds prepared mustard; we use a little wholegrain.
- Eggs and celery. Allrecipes’ Red-Skinned Potato Salad (4.7/5 from 2,438 ratings) adds eggs, bacon and celery; we put eggs and celery in the notes.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- BBC Good Food (Matt Tebbutt): Classic potato salad (4.7/5, 135 ratings)
- Allrecipes (jewellkay): Old-Fashioned Potato Salad (4.6/5, 1443 ratings)
- Allrecipes (Donna): Red-Skinned Potato Salad (4.7/5, 2438 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.