Potato salad, a classic summer side dish, can be transformed with a simple addition: pickle juice. According to home cook Glenda Embree of the recipe blog Making Homemade Easy, pickle juice is the secret ingredient that elevates the flavour of this traditional dish.
Why Pickle Juice Works
Embree explains that creamy dishes benefit from acidity to brighten other flavours. "Acid can come from things like citrus juice and zest or vinegar. In the case of this recipe, the vinegar in the pickle juice is what gives it that special flavour amp," she said. For potato salad, the acidity cuts through the richness of mayonnaise, preventing it from tasting dull.
How to Add Pickle Juice
Embree recommends pouring the pickle juice over the assembled salad and folding it in with the dressing. "I have a secret ingredient in potato salad. Pickle juice. I know. It sounds weird, but trust me. It's the bomb in the bomb-diggety for this delicious potato salad," she stated. She advises adding one tablespoon at a time until the desired zing is achieved.
Recipe for Enhanced Potato Salad
Ingredients
- 680g potatoes
- 1 red onion
- 50g celery, thinly sliced
- 112g pickles, minced
- 267g mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon mustard
- 45ml pickle juice (to taste)
Method
Wash and peel the potatoes as desired, then cut into uniform bite-sized pieces. Place in a large saucepan, cover with salted water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-high and boil for about 15 minutes until fork-tender. Drain in a colander and run cool water over them to stop cooking. Spread potatoes in a single layer on a baking tray and cool in the freezer or fridge.
While potatoes cool, prep the other vegetables. Once potatoes are completely cooled, combine them with veggies in a large bowl. Add mayonnaise and mustard on top, swirl together, then pour pickle juice over everything and fold until evenly coated. Refrigerate until serving. The salad keeps for several days but is likely to be eaten quickly.
