Upgrade Your Comfort Food: Add Pickled Jalapeños To Classic Potato Salad

Potato salad is a summertime staple at picnics and barbecues, as well it might be. After all, it's not only incredibly easy to make but also cheap enough that you won't go broke providing enough of it to feed a crowd. (For this reason alone, you should always volunteer to bring the potato salad if you're asked to contribute to a potluck.) While boiled potatoes and mayonnaise alone can be pretty boring, every potato salad recipe contains some kind of add-ins, and these are as numerous and varied as the cooks who make the salads. We, ourselves, have potato salad recipes made with everything from blue cheese to ranch dressing to deviled eggs, but our "classic" potato salad is one that includes a spicy not-so-secret ingredient: pickled jalapeños.

Developer Miriam Hahn adds jalapeños to this recipe because, in her opinion, "adding a kick to potato salad would be a nice change from the typical type." While fresh jalapeños would make for a more powerful kick, she explains that "By using the pickled type of jalapeños, even people who don't like things too hot will be okay because they are much milder."

Even though pickled jalapeños aren't particularly incendiary, you probably still won't want a bite of salad that tastes entirely of this one ingredient (or any of the other ones). For that reason, it helps to chop them up finely, along with the celery, onion, cilantro, and dill that Hahn also uses for flavoring. "My only chopping tip," she says, "is to use a basic chef's knife, nothing fancy."

Once you've cut up the pickled jalapeños and other choppable ingredients, mix them with diced boiled potatoes (no need to peel these, although you can if you want) as well as mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, cumin, salt, and pepper. The salad is basically done at this point, although Hahn recommends refrigerating it for 2 hours before digging in. She describes the potato salad as "great for a summer barbecue or just a great side dish with anything" and notes that it makes great leftovers because, in her opinion, "It gets better the next day."

Even though Hahn uses pickled jalapeños to add some very mild heat to this potato salad, she still finds a place for fresh ones, as well. As we can see from her photos, she's using a few slices of these as a garnish, and you can do likewise if you wish. You could also chop these peppers up and stir them into the salad if you really want to spice things up.