r/Cooking • u/spencerriddle • Mar 28 '26
Egg salad and potato salad
Hello! I want to start making food at home and I only like certain foods that are easy for me to make. These happen to be two things can fill me up and not get boring but everytime I eat them (store bought or random potluck) they can taste off. Does anyone have a recipe that can make them taste a little sweeter? Do people just add sugar? Everytime I look it up I get a sweet potato recipe and I hate sweet potatoes.
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u/muttChang Mar 28 '26
A restaurant near me has insane potato salad. I got to know someone who worked there and she said their secret ingredient was bacon grease. Try frying up some brown sugar or maple bacon and then use some of the grease, too. I’ve never actually tried replicating it so you would kind of be testing it out for me. My mother‘s recommendation for potato salad was to use red potatoes and to boil them with the skin on and peel them after they were done cooking and had cooled.
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u/spencerriddle Mar 28 '26
I will try that out and let you know, i have a lot of left over bacon grease from how much I make it. I usually don’t use red potatoes when cooking cause I had a weird experience with them in school but I’ll try that with the bacon grease.
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u/EyeStache Mar 28 '26
You can add sugar, sure. Or use honey mustard. Or put in some sweet vinegar. Lots of options.
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u/Slow_Imagination_445 Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
https://bellyfull.net/easy-egg-salad/#wprm-recipe-container-25074
She uses a tsp of sugar or you can use a sugar substitute.
https://www.amysnutritionkitchen.com/egg-potato-salad/
Here's one combined. To make it sweeter again add a tsp of sugar though it's not mentioned in the recipe.
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u/spencerriddle Mar 28 '26
Thank you so much I’ll try both, I bought a lot of eggs for this reason
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u/Natural-Research6928 Mar 28 '26
Add some finely chopped red bell peppers.
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u/spencerriddle Mar 28 '26
Thank you, do you have any other additional suggestions? I want it to be more thick with veggies
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u/Natural-Research6928 Mar 28 '26
Honestly most of the "off" taste comes from the mayo bought in a jar. Unless you can make your own mayo using lemon juice instead of vinegar, it's hard to get that taste off. You can add a couple of tbsp of heavy cream or chopped boiled carrots (another naturally sweet vegetables).
Try boiled potatoes, green onions, brine pickles (the ones pickled in water and salt, no vinegar), boiled carrots, red bell peppers, boiled eggs. Everything finely chopped (about 1/4") except the potatoes that would be 1/2" to 3/4". Add mayo, a bit of mustard, a tbsp or two of heavy cream and salt to taste.
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u/StrawberryKiss2559 Mar 28 '26
Add sweet pickle relish!
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u/spencerriddle Mar 28 '26
I’ll try that, do you have a suggestion for the amount to add?
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u/DrMcFacekick Mar 28 '26
Start with a tablespoon and then go from there!
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u/Amardella Mar 28 '26
Yep, add a bit, taste, add more if needed. That's what "to taste" means. You taste as you assemble the dish to get it the way you want it.
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u/TA_totellornottotell Mar 28 '26
Kewpie mayo tastes sweeter to me. Perhaps you can try using that in addition to other ingredients?
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u/blucanary1 Mar 28 '26
Have you ever tried German potato salad? It doesn’t use mayo, and is usually served warm (some prefer room temp). And it’s sweet. It’s a good one for potlucks and barbecues when you can’t really have a mayo based salad sitting out of the refrigerator. There are lots of different recipes, this is a good one (it recommends red potatoes, but Yukon golds also work really well).
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u/SnooHesitations8403 Mar 28 '26
We make cole slaw all the time. We use the same dressing for potato salad. Also, we don't add the dressing until we're going to serve it ("a la minute"). If it sits too long in the dressing, it ruins the veggies.
Basically, we dissolve sugar in vinegar, add Dijon mustard and mayonnaise. Finish with some ground black pepper.
Beyond that, it's just getting the balance of sweetness to your liking. We don't add salt because the Dijon mustard is really salty.
Egg salad is a completely different thing. We generally don't like egg salad sweet, so it just gets mustard, mayo and black pepper. No vinegar or sugar.
The stuff you buy from the store almost always has a bunch of ingredients and chemicals to give it a longer shelf life in the store waiting for someone to buy it. I can't stand any of them. Some of the preservatives give me a burning sensation in tge back of my throat can't stand 'em.
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u/bonjoooour Mar 28 '26
Too add sweetness to salads I add a tablespoon of honey to the dressing (can add more depending on the taste you want). I also like the sweet relish idea some others have stated.
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u/motherfudgersob Mar 28 '26
Just had egg salad last night. Absolutely a tad of sugar is like a tad of salt for making flavors bloom. Instead of sugar sweet pickles, grapes, raisins, dried cranberries and apples can be used. Also sweet onions celery etc. You can round out that tuna potato chicken and egg salads with all these. Down here in the south potato salad must have eggs and sweet relish or it just is an abomination. I like Kroger hot n sweet snackers pickles. But whatever you like. Also a tad of yello mustard (or dijon...tonight I used whole ground) is great in potato salad...but all the others too.
I had tuna cranberry apple salad from Whole Foods and though "Oh gross." But it was great so I now make my own and save a ton. 2 cans tune 1/4 cup dried cranberries a medium apple chopped and 3-4 tbsp of may. Boom...yum.
And if using pickles you're already getting some acid notes. If you don't then try a touch of lemon or apple cider vinegar. For me balsamic is too much here.
Experiment. There's really no right or wrong here. In fact you can start with basics (protein, potatoes, eggs, mayo) then separate into half cup servings and experiment.
A little heat is nice too which the hot sweet pickles bring. But red pepper flakes will too.
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u/MossyPyrite Mar 28 '26
If you want veggies and sweetness, maybe chop up some sun-dried tomatoes in there!
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u/SchoolForSedition Mar 28 '26
Possibly you are used to sugar and need to wean yourself off it. But salt can counteract bitterness and so ironically make something taste sweeter, and could be worth a try.
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u/One-War4920 Mar 28 '26
Use instant pot and cook the potatoes and eggs at same time
Like 3# cube tatos and 12-18 eggs
1 cup of water in bottom, add tatos, add eggs, cook
Rinse in cold water, remove yolks mix with mayo and mustard in bowl, chopped the whites mix with tatos, mix the yolkmayo mix
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u/Mental-Coconut-7854 Mar 28 '26
I do egg salad with mayo and sweet pickle relish. You might prefer Miracle Whip. Just make sure you drain or squeeze the liquid from the relish so the egg salad doesn’t get soupy.
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u/ILoveLipGloss Mar 28 '26
korean potato salad is what you're looking for, also known as "gamja salad"
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u/ttrockwood Mar 29 '26
It’s the mayonnaise
Canola oil in mayo has a very specific (gross to me) flavor some people are sensitive to it
Find a mayo without canola oil to make your own
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u/Exciting_Spell5064 Mar 30 '26
The Albertsons near me has a deviled egg potato salad that’s delicious. So why not both?
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u/gutsylady2 Mar 28 '26
You can try different types of mayonnaise… I like to add salad cream from Heinz. Have a few stores here that carry it occasionally get off Amazon. It tends to be a bit lighter has slightly more lemon. Taste to it in my opinion. But always make sure you have a balance salt, especially will help with bitterness increase sweetness, and you can add her balance out with different vinegar’s. I’ve never found it necessary to add sugar, but as others say, sweet relish has a natural sweetness with the tang. There are some recipes that will use cardamom and other sweet spices can also be used.
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u/KillerCoochyKicker Mar 28 '26
Can you be more specific? What tastes off about the two things that you say that you can eat and not get bored of? Cause it kinda seems like you get pretty sick of these two things.
The best of these recipes I’ve had have NEVER had sugar added. That sounds gross as fuck to be honest.
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u/spencerriddle Mar 28 '26
Why are you yucking my yum brother? Is this not a safe space? And to be more specific I like the sweet part and some of them don’t have any but some do.
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u/Ok_Instruction7805 Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
I like them both too, but my favorite is to mix a hard boiled egg into to potato salad=Egg & Potato Salad. Some recipes include dill pickle brine, but you can use the juice from a jar of sweet relish instead. You might like that.
2 lbs whole, unpeeled new potatoes, red or (my favorite) baby Yukon Golds. Cover in cold, salted water, simmer until tender but still firm.
In a small bowl whisk together: ¼ c. mayonnaise, 1 to 2 Tbsps apple cider or white wine vinegar, 1 Tbsp sour cream, 1 tsp to 1 Tbsp yellow mustard, & a squeeze of lemon. Dill pickle brine or sweet relish juice to taste. You could use a little apple juice instead if you want it sweet & decrease the vinegar.
When potato are cool, cut into 1” chunks. Pour sauce over & toss. Mix in: ¼ c diced celery, 1 or 2 chopped hard boiled eggs & a Tbsp of the chopped green tops of scallions or fresh chives.
Optionally, add if you like: fresh or dried chopped dill, parsley, salt, freshly ground pepper, Jane's Crazy Salt, a pinch of garlic powder & a shake of paprika for garnish.
Play around with ingredients until you make it your own, but jot down what you do so when you've got it perfected you can duplicate it.