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American Potato Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes with grated onion, mayonnaise dressing, chilled and optionally sliced with simple salad dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

American Potato Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes with skins on, then peel while hot.

  2. Cut the potatoes into small pieces, about half the size of a hickory nut.

Dress and chill

  1. Add grated onion and cover with mayonnaise dressing.

  2. Chill on ice before serving.

Alternative method

  1. Alternatively, slice cold potatoes and young onions, using one-third onions.

  2. Pour simple salad dressing over the sliced potatoes and onions.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

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.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Forms the bulk of the salad and gives it its starchy, soft body.
Grated onion
Adds sharp, aromatic flavour that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
Mayonnaise dressing
Supplies fat and moisture, giving the salad its creamy texture and binding the potato pieces.

The step that matters

Chill on ice before serving. Cooling firms the potato pieces and helps the mayonnaise dressing set, so the salad holds its shape. Mayonnaise-based dishes also need to stay cold to limit bacterial growth.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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