Today I’m so happy to share a simple red potato salad recipe with you that comes together pretty quickly. This delicious recipe is a free-from take on a classic potato salad. There’s no celery, no alliums, and a lot of other typical ingredients have been excluded. However, if you can have these types of ingredients, be sure to check out the How to Jazz This Up Section, where I share different ingredients you can add into your potato salad.
Allergy Status (Does NOT Include Your Mayo of Choice)
Free From: Wheat/Gluten, Dairy, Egg, Soy, Tree Nuts, Peanut, Fish, Shellfish, Top 9 Allergens, Sesame, Alliums, Apple, Avocado, Banana, Beans & Lentils, Berries, Buckwheat, Cane/Refined Sugar, Celery, Cinnamon, Citrus, Coconut, Garlic, Legume, Lupin, Mushroom, Oat, Onion, Pea & Pea Protein, Poultry, Red Meat, Rice, Seeds, Squash & Gourd, Stone Fruits, Strawberry, Sweet Potato & Yam, Tapioca/Cassava/Yuca/Manioc, Tomato, Yeast
Friendly To: EOE, Low FODMAP, Vegan
Compatible With: Peppercorn Free, Top 14 Free
- Peppercorn Free: Skip the black pepper. You can swap it for ground ginger if you fancy that.
- Top 14 Free: Use top 14 free mayo.
Allergen Warning: Major and less common allergens found in most egg free mayonnaise options: mustard (cruciferous), corn (via derivatives), cane sugar, legumes (including soy), and nightshades (via paprika). Here’s a top 14 free mayo company if you need it.
Tools to Make This Potato Salad Recipe
- Knife (this is my current fave knife series)
- Cutting Board
- Kitchen Scale
- Large Pot (lid not necessary)
- Pan + Cooking Spoon
Simple Red Potato Salad Ingredients
Potatoes (Part 1 Ingredients)
- 1KG Organic Red Skin Potatoes (36 ounces), medium cube with skin on
- Water
- 5 tsp Sea Salt (for boiling water)
Stovetop Ingredients Part 1
- 5 TBSP Cooking Oil/Fat of Choice, divided (see directions)
- 140g Organic Carrots, shredded
- 50g Shishito Peppers, slice or roughly chop
Stovetop Ingredients Part 2
- 2 TBSP Organic Balsamic Vinegar
- 60mL Organic Maple Syrup
Assembly Ingredients
- 365g Mayonnaise of Choice
- 3/4 tsp Sea Salt
- pinch Organic Black Pepper (you can use more or skip if you’re not a fan)
Ingredient Notes & Swaps
Cooking Fat: You can use any cooking oil or fat of choice. Personally, I use organic extra virgin olive oil. Tallow, lard, bacon drippings, tiger nut oil (tuber, not a tree nut), butter, dairy free butter, and avocado oil are all fantastic choices as well.
Carrots: If you’re not a fan of carrots, or have a carrot allergy, you can swap this for other shredded vegetables. I’d suggest zucchini (courgette), beets, and parsnips. Mushroom can also make a lovely addition to your potato salad.
Shishito Peppers: These are a mild Japanese pepper, and aren’t available at every grocery store. If you can’t find them, green bell peppers can stand in nicely, as can other bell pepper colours.
Allergy Friendly Mayonnaise Suggestions: My two favourite US brands for egg free mayo are Sir Kensington’s and Follow Your Heart. For egg based mayo, I get the Primal Kitchen brand for my kids who can have eggs. If you’d like to see more egg free mayo options, read this article.
Video: Watch me Make this Potato Salad without Celery
You can watch me make this red skin potato salad recipe:
Simple Red Potato Salad Instructions
Start by preparing the produce. For the potatoes, only peel off the skin in an area that might be a bad spot. Wash and cube them into bite-sized pieces. To slice the peppers, you’ll use a rocking motion with your knife in the same way you’d slice a carrot. There’s no need to try to remove the core of a pepper that small, and if you have seeds in the mix, it’s fine.
Place your potatoes in a large pot and cover with cold water by about an inch (2.5cm). Add 5 tsp of sea salt, mix well, then bring to a boil. It takes a while to get to a rolling boil, but once you’re there, the boiling time is 5 – 6 minutes.
Your potatoes should not be mushy at all, and you want them to retain some of their bite. They should be *just* fork tender, which means easy to pierce with a fork, but not so easy that they’re falling apart. When the potatoes are ready, drain them in a colander, then set aside.
Next, you’ll heat a medium non-stick pan on medium-high heat (7/10 for me). Add 3 Tablespoons of the cooking oil (I use organic extra virgin olive oil). Once it’s heated, add your shredded carrots, sliced peppers, and 1 teaspoon of sea salt. (Stovetop Ingredients Part 1).
Mix well and cook for 8 – 10 minutes. Whilst cooking, the oil will evaporate. When you feel it’s time, add the additional 2 Tablespoons of cooking oil and mix.
Now you’ll add the balsamic and maple (Stovetop Ingredients Part 2). Mix everything together again and continue to cook for 5 – 6 minutes. When the time is up, turn the heat off.
Place your potatoes back into the pot you boiled them in. No point in dirtying another dish. Now, add the carrot and pepper mix, followed by the mayo, 3/4 teaspoon of sea salt, and black pepper (Assembly Ingredients). Gently fold/mix everything together very well, and that’s it. Your simple red potato salad is done, delicious, and ready to enjoy.
This potato salad can be enjoyed warm or cold. If you opt for cold, it takes several hours to chill.
Mixing Tip
I like to give the potatoes some time to cool down before adding the mayo. Cold mayo + hot potatoes = melted free-from mayo.
Why Cold Water?
Interestingly, you should start your potatoes off in cold water, and for good reason. Unlike green vegetables with thin cell walls, you can’t add potatoes into boiling water and get the best results.
Since potatoes have a lot more starch, if you add them to boiling water, you end up gelatinizing the starch at the surface much too fast, which will leave you with a mushy exterior that will fall apart in the water.
On the other hand, if you start in cold water, it gives the potatoes a chance to come up to temperature at a better rate, which improves cooking. Starting in cold water will also produce a better end result as you have more even cooking, overall.
Potato Salad Storage
After you’ve made this great potato salad recipe, store leftovers in the fridge in an airtight container. I like to use a large bowl with a lid like this one. Do not freeze your leftovers. Be sure to enjoy leftovers within 3 – 5 days.
Ways to Jazz Up Your Simple Red Potato Salad
By design, this celery free potato salad recipe is minimal and simple. There’s flavor, texture, and creaminess, but also it’s a recipe that can be shared by a lot of people (especially those following a medically restrictive diet) because of the minimal ingredients. So, let’s take a look a lot of different ways you can change up this tasty recipe. You can use one of these ideas, or a combination of these ideas.
Add Alliums
There are so many delicious allium to choose from! If you can have alliums, small diced red onion or sweet onions could make a lovely addition to your potato salad. Add them to the pan when you cook the peppers.
Go Global
You can lean into flavors from around the world and take inspiration from dishes you already know and adore. Perhaps you’re a curry fan or like what Japanese cuisine has to offer. Each region tends to have some kind of spice blend, and here are some to get you started:
- Berbere
- Cajun Spice
- Chinese Five Spice
- Curry
- Everything (as in, everything bagel)
- Harissa
- Italian
- Jerk
- Ras el Hanout
- Togarashi
- Za’atar
You can add individual spices, or a spice blend to your pan when you cook the peppers, which allows you to cook out the raw spice flavour. Keep in mind, some famous seasonings have different versions. Curry is a great example, as there are hundreds of ways to make a curry powder blend at home from a range of traditional ingredients. Use this to your advantage and try something new each time you make this creamy potato salad recipe.
Make it Hot
If you enjoy spicy foods, you should totally lean into that. This simple red potato salad makes use of a mild Japanese pepper for the sake of texture and flavour, however, you can trade that for spicy peppers such as jalapeño, Anaheim, Fresno, or habanero. You can also tap into jarred peppers if that’s easier.
You can also kick up the heat by adding a Korean spicy gochujang paste when you add the mayo. This is an easy way to add spice and flavor to your potato salad in one go.
Add a Protein
There are so many different proteins you can fold into your potato salad to keep things interesting, including chopped hard-boiled eggs. Here are a few ideas for you to consider:
- Crispy Bacon
- Hard Seared Steak (skirt steak could be a good option here, and you can use beef steak, bison steak, and so on)
- Hard-boiled Egg
- Seasoned Pulled Jackfruit (a fantastic vegan protein)
- Thin Sliced Sausage
- Seasoned + Oven Roasted Chickpeas
Add a Pop of Acid
Acid can do SO much for your recipes. For potato salad, you can a splash of flavoured vinegar, lemon juice, or even red wine vinegar. To get the most out of this splash (or two), add it near the end of cooking. If you want the flavour to be deeper, add some acid half way thru cooking, and a bit more at the end of cooking.
Change up the Texture
You can change up this potato salad recipe without celery by absolutely changing your potatoes. You can alter their texture by oven roasting them, or…. go out on a limb with me… deep frying half the potatoes.
If you choose to oven roast, air fry, or deep fry any of your potatoes, you’ll want to serve your potato salad warm, to get the full effect of the crunchy bits. Once something like that goes into the refrigerator, it’s lights out for the crunch.
If frying potatoes isn’t on the menu, you can add something like toasted breadcrumbs or crushed nuts/seeds when serving your potato salad.
Bring in Other Condiments
Whilst this recipe has a foundation in mayonnaise, you can branch out. For example, you could swap the mayo 1:1 for Japanese mayo and have a super interesting potato salad.
You can use a blend of half mayonnaise and half sour cream to add tang and a little funk to your potato salad. If you’re a pickle fan, chopped dill pickles, pickle relish, or even dill pickle juice would all be tasty add-ons.
There are a lot of potato salad recipes that take a traditional approach with mustard, and so long as you’re not allergic, you can do the same. You can make a creamy dressing with dijon mustard, honey mustard, or yellow mustard and add that to your potato salad as a garnish, or use it as part of the mayo blend. Mustard will add a bit of a sharp note to your potato salad, so be mindful of that, especially if you’re feeding children who don’t love mustard yet.
If you’re a fan of traditionally fermented foods, you can add a little something like kimchi, fermented carrots, sauerkraut, or something else along those lines. This kind of addition will add a little punch and sharp note to your potato salad and help keep things interesting.
Add a Garnish
A garnish can give your recipes a push from being good to great. I like to use dried parsley and dried spinach flakes to garnish a lot of foods, however, a fresh garnish is even better.
Fresh herbs can ad earthy notes, but also freshness. In addition to that, when you have a heavy, rich, creamy dish, that fresh pop can work wonders (as does a squeeze of lemon).
Fresh dill would be amazing as a garnish, followed by flat leaf parsley. If you’re not allergic to celery, fresh celery is another good option. The advantage to crunchy celery is that you’re bringing fresh with a little texture as well.
Change the Potatoes
If you like to experiment with different base ingredients, you can use halved small potatoes, cubed purple potatoes (not the kind with purple flesh only like a Viking, but actual purple potatoes), or fingerling potatoes.
If you’re nightshade free, try making a delicious potato salad with Japanese sweet potatoes. They’re starchy potatoes that can stand up to this kind of cooking process. Just be sure to stop cooking the potatoes when they’re a bit on the firmer side as to not have mush.
Take a Combination Approach
There are some ingredient pairings that are classic for a reason, and you can use them together to make perhaps, the best red potato salad ever. Or at least a version that will make your taste buds sing and dance.
The advantage to a combination approach is that you’re adding a range of texture, flavor, and keeping your food interesting (which is important if you follow a medically restrictive diet). Here are a few combo ideas that would make a wonderful addition to your great red potato salad:
- Fold in fresh chopped chives, crispy bacon (or bacon bits), and minced garlic.
- Add caramelized onions, smoked paprika, and a little mushroom powder when cooking your peppers.
- Add a garnish of sliced scallions (aka green onions) and diced heirloom tomatoes (or quartered cherry tomatoes),
More Recipes for Easy Sides & Classic Sides
Whether you need sides for burgers, grilled chicken, or back yard get togethers, here are some simple sides everyone can enjoy. You can get more side ideas in this article.
- Vegan Spiced Carrots Recipe (GF, V, Top 9 Free, Top 14 Free)
- Easy Cheesy Vegan Green Beans (GF, V, Top 9 Free, Top 14 Free)
- Nut Free Mac Without Cheese (a great pasta recipe if you don’t have a safe dairy free cheese option)
- Gluten Free Dairy Free Mushroom Mac and Cheese Recipe (GF, V, Top 9/14 Free)
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Answering Your Questions About This Simple Red Potato Salad Recipe
Can I use Yukon Golds instead of red potatoes?
Sure, you can make that swap. Generally, the red skinned variety will be waxy potatoes whilst Yukon Gold has a naturally creamy texture. When making this swap, you don’t need to change anything else. Still make the stove top mixture, fold everything together, chill, and serve. Well, you can also eat this warm if that’s your jam.
Know that a lot of gold potatoes sold these days aren’t Yukon Gold from Canada. It’s kind of a debated topic, and people go back and forth on taste and texture. If you’d like more information on different potato varieties, check out this article.
Can I peel the potato skins when making this recipe?
Technically, yes, you could peel the potato skins when making this potato salad. However, one thing to be aware of: your potatoes may all apart a little bit. Since the skin won’t be there to hold things in place, you may have some breakage. This isn’t the worst thing ever though. You can strain the potatoes in a colander and still use any small bits in the potato salad.
Something you can do to help on this front: stop cooking the potatoes when they still have a firmer texture. Also, be gentle when folding in the additional ingredients.
Is this a good potato salad recipe to take to a potluck?
If you’re concerned that this potato salad might taste too “free-from” to be enjoyed by others, fear not. I think this could be a perfect side dish to bring to a gathering and share with others.
Depending on the crowd, I’d encourage you to take a look at the How to Jazz This Up section, and add something else to the recipe as you see fit.
Could I make this recipe with fingerling potatoes?
Honestly, you could totally make this potato salad recipe with fingerling potatoes. The overall taste won’t change very much and it will still be a great recipe that you can share with friends and family at a get together.
Is this basically a German potato salad recipe?
Whilst this easy red potato salad does start with unpeeled red potatoes like a classic German option, that’s about where the similarities end. OK, you could also eat this warm, but in terms of ingredients, no.
If anything, I’d call this a cross between a German potato salad and maybe US southern potato salad? It’s hard to put a finger on it because I’ve taken a completely different, non-traditional free-from approach.
Ultimately, it has a little of this and a little of that, but really, it’s just a good potato salad with creamy red potatoes. I hope you enjoy it!
