Add More Creaminess And Flavor To Potato Salad With Tangy Tartar Sauce

Sometimes, your spuds just need a little something extra. We love a classic potato salad for its hefty main ingredient, creamy sauce, and easy blend of mild flavors. But let's face it — without specific components that punch up the flavor, this summer side can get a little bland. So if you want your potato salad to become more than just a mild background dish, you'll want to add in a dose of tartar sauce.

You may be thinking, isn't tartar sauce supposed to be used for fish? It's true that you usually see it as a dip for seafood or spread for fish sandwiches, but there are plenty of good reasons to add it to your spuds as well. A simple tartar sauce recipe contains mayo, salt, lemon juice, dill, and diced pickles, which create the perfect balance of creamy and tangy. In fact, since many potato salad dressings are based around mayo, you can swap in this new condiment as your creamy element entirely. Between the lemon juice and dill pickles, you'll also get plenty of briny tartness that will pop on your tongue amid the blander ingredients.

The beauty of adding tartar sauce is that whether you want to buy a bottle from the store or make your own, it's simple to incorporate. Whipping up a homemade recipe only requires a few components (as mentioned), and you'll just need to stir them together and refrigerate the whole thing until chilled. To amp up the briny flavor, include a little pickle juice, white wine, apple cider vinegar, or chopped capers — or swap out the mayo for sour cream to add even more tang. Then, either replace the mayo-based dressing in your dish with your tartar sauce, or just spoon in a little if you want less acidity. But if you go with the former option, incorporate about 2 cups of sauce for every 2 ½ cups of chopped spuds.

However, you can also play around with other ingredients in your bowl that can add to or detract from the tang of your dish. Spoon in a dollop of whole-grain mustard and toss everything together so that the flavors mix thoroughly, or stir in some chopped pickled jalapeños to add some spice. On the flip side, feel free to balance out the extra sourness with hearty, mild components like green beans, hard-boiled eggs, cauliflower, cucumbers, and carrots.