Name: Julie's Crunchy Potato Salad
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 20 min
Yield: 12 servings
Ingredients: 12 large red potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch slices; 1 bunch celery, finely chopped; 1 bunch green onion, thinly sliced; 3 carrots, peeled and diced; 2 green bell peppers, seeded and diced; 1 (3.25 ounce) can sliced black olives; 6 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and mashed; 2 1/2 cups mayonnaise; 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard; 1/4 cup chopped pickles; 1 pinch salad seasoning mix (such as McCormick® Salad Supreme Seasoning), or to taste; 1 pinch dill seasoning mix, or to taste; salt and ground black pepper to taste; 2 tablespoons pickle juice, or to taste

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, celery, carrot, pepper, olive, egg, mustard):

Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits better
Lettucefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, celery, carrot, pepper, olive, egg, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Green Bell Pepper	1 medium (119g)	31
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Olive	1 large (4g)	4
Dill	5 sprigs fresh (1g) / 1 tsp dried	4
Mustard	1 tsp (5g) yellow	3
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Salad	not in our table	0

Julie's Crunchy Potato Salad