Green Beans Are The Easiest Addition For Shaking Up Potato Salad

One of the easiest ways to make a dish more intriguing is by adding a variety of soft and crunchy textures, and Tasting Table recipe developer Susan Olayinka strikes a perfect balance in her Green Bean Potato Salad Recipe. Crisp, fresh green beans combine with pillowy potatoes in a delectable mustard and honey sauce. The best part is the potatoes and green beans cook at the same time so the recipe comes together in a breeze. If you want your green beans to be crunchier, you can opt to cook them for slightly less time than the potatoes — you would simply add them halfway through the potato's cooking time. What this does is preserve more of the color of the vegetable and keep more of that snappy bite intact.

The green beans work in this dish by providing not only a contrasting texture but a fresh earthy flavor as well. The slight bitterness of the green beans complements the honey in the dressing, creating an ideal blend of flavors. Adding green beans to potato salad is an easy way to get more greens into your meals in a flavorful way. Sometimes dishes like potato salad can feel heavy from the starchy potatoes, but green beans break up this monotony with a juicy, bright flavor.

While Olayinka goes for a mustard and honey dressing for her salad, you can get creative and choose unique flavors that work with the green beans. You could take a more Greek potato salad approach with patatosalata and add sliced red onions, olives, feta, and fresh dill with a dressing composed of lemon juice, minced garlic, and extra virgin olive oil. This salty potato salad style will be elevated with the addition of the fresh taste of the green beans. Plus, green beans are included in many Mediterranean dishes, making them a complementary ingredient for the dish.

If you're someone who prefers to keep your potato salads simple, you can opt for a French-style potato salad. French potato salads use light olive oil, dijon mustard, champagne vinegar dressing, and a variety of fresh herbs for an earthy, herbal touch, and champagne vinegar brings a slight touch of sweetness to the dish that brings out the natural sweetness found in green beans. Typical French potato salads will include parsley, dill, and scallions, but other popular French herbs that could work for this dish include thyme, tarragon, or basil.