This Is Exactly How Long To Boil Potatoes For A Delicious Potato Salad

Potato salad has been gracing the tables of barbeques, cookouts, and picnics for quite some time. Particularly popular in Southern cuisine, potato salad is a creamy side dish with a hint of tang that is served cold to complement the heat and spices of barbecue dishes. People have started putting their own creative spin on potato salad, like adding Old Bay seasoning, Champagne vinegar, or Worcestershire sauce for extra flavor. 

Additional ingredients are well and good but their potential can be dampened if the core ingredients of the potato salad are not made and assembled properly first. Boiling and mashing some potatoes sounds like a simple enough task, but timing plays an important part in achieving the perfect texture for potato salad. Generally speaking, boiling potatoes for 10 minutes is ideal when making classic Southern potato salad.

Some recipes will say that potatoes need to boil for at least 20 or even 30 minutes, but it is quite possible to get the potatoes nice and tender without waiting for that long. The key to getting tender potatoes for potato salad is to keep in mind the type and size of the potato, as this will directly affect things like cooking time and texture. Thinking ahead of time in this manner will make the entire process of making potato salad nice and smooth.

Potatoes are unique in that they are quite dense in comparison to other vegetables. They require a different method of boiling than most vegetables to compensate for this. Instead of adding the potatoes to the pot once the water boils, place the potatoes in the water while the water is still cold.

This method gives the potatoes more time in the water and allows them to gradually rise in temperature as the water does. Not only is this faster than trying to cook the potatoes once the water has boiled, but it also makes the texture of the inside of the potato more consistent. Throwing potatoes into boiling water will actually cook the potato unevenly, as the outside will become cooked quicker than the inside.

The ideal texture for potatoes in potato salad is nice and tender but not cooked to the point of being mushy so that cut or sliced potato pieces will still hold their shape. Certain types of potatoes are better for potato salad, like red or fingerling potatoes. Generally, potatoes that are waxy and have thinner skin work better because they can be cut before cooking without falling apart in the water. Using smaller potatoes also helps, as they will cook quicker.