Give Your Potato Salad A Sophisticated French Spin With 2 Extra Ingredients

Potato salad and its humble mix of ingredients may not strike as the fanciest of dishes, but the French would beg to differ. There are a lot of different potato salad recipes around the world, and most of those lean towards the rich and creamy side of things. Even German potato salad with its lack of mayo gets a hearty slathering of rendered bacon. French potato salad is one clear exception to these trends. Light and bright, it's flavored with a shower of herbs like dill and parsley for a fresh-tasting twist on a normally heavy dish. But you don't need to do everything the French way to take some lessons about what makes their potato salad work. There are two great ingredients in our French potato salad, created by recipe developer Miriam Hahm, that can add a continental spin to any recipe: champagne vinegar and Dijon mustard.

Dijon mustard you are certainly familiar with, but that doesn't mean you should underrate how its pungent bite can liven up a potato salad, even with just a teaspoon or two. As tasty as potatoes can be, they need a lot of flavor, and no mustard delivers the goods like Dijon. Best of all, being so strong means you can use it with a light hand as a background player with other ingredients, and it can still be transformative. Champagne vinegar, on the other hand, may not be what you expect and is the real secret ingredient in French potato salad.

Made from champagne or other wine grapes, champagne vinegar is a pale and surprisingly lightly flavored vinegar. While still having that vinegar sourness, it isn't as bracing as most vinegar, which makes it great for adding a little bite to potato salad without overshadowing other ingredients. With lightly sweet, floral notes and crispness from its namesake grapes, it's useful for adding more complexity to potato salad. Paired with Dijon mustard, you will get an incredible range of tastes with a lively sharpness and spice that is a great balancing addition.

This combo of additions doesn't need to star by itself, either. It would make a great addition to classic American or Southern-style potato salad recipes using mayo and eggs, where it will brighten up the dish. It's also a flavor combination that is very friendly with another French classic with potatoes, niçoise salad, which can easily be transformed into a straight-up potato salad with tuna, hard-boiled eggs, and olives. Or go with a German-French combo by using the vinegar and mustard as a base for a bacon vinaigrette salad dressing to toss with potatoes.

Champagne vinegar and Dijon mustard may be two classic French ingredients, but don't be confined by geography. The mixture of acidic vinegar and bold mustard has the dimension to enhance any partners, and potato salad is the perfect vehicle to use them.