Tomorrow is Memorial Day here in the States. A day for remembering the military personnel who died in service to their country.

It's also the unofficial start of summer, and grills across the country will be dragged out of storage for burgers and hot dogs. I'm making burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, potato salad, grilled pineapple, and strawberry shortcake.

Today I'm prepping the potato salad recipe I make every year.

The Potato Problem

I fancy myself a decent home cook, but I have a mental block when it comes to potatoes. I can't explain it. I never seem to get them right, especially when boiling. They're always either overdone or underdone. I can test them, flash cool them when they're perfect, and they'll still somehow come out wrong. Maybe I'm cursed. I guess it wouldn't be the worst curse, but still kinda annoying.

To get around this, I've started sous vide-ing my potatoes. I cut them into roughly one-inch cubes, vacuum-seal them, and drop them into the water bath at 190°F (88°C) for about an hour. They come out perfectly done every time. I do the same thing for baked potatoes but give them a few minutes in the air fryer to crisp the outside.

Putting It Together

Once I have the potatoes, I add hard-cooked eggs, chopped onion, and celery. The dressing is mayonnaise and spicy horseradish mustard. Same dressing I use for macaroni salad, and it's the basis for my deviled eggs.

So simple that calling it a potato salad recipe feels like overstating it. I don't know any of the amounts; it's a play-it-by-ear kind of thing. Add the mayonnaise and mix it around so that it looks mayonnaisey enough. Then add some mustard until it tastes the way you want it to. Salt and pepper, of course. And that's it.

Yellow mustard is more common, as is a bit of sugar. But this is what mom made, so this is what I make.

Goes great with my summer sausage

If You Don't Have a Sous Vide

If you don't have a sous vide cooker, add a tablespoon of vinegar to the water when you boil the potatoes. The acid slows down the breakdown of pectin in the outer layers, keeping the cubes intact while the inside cooks through. It gives you a wider window of perfection between undercooked and overdone. Kenji López-Alt explains the science well if you want to go deeper into how vinegar helps with potatoes.

Either way, use waxy potatoes like Yukon Golds. They hold their shape better than russets, which tend to crumble into mashed potato territory.