Mexican Potato Salad
All the greatness of potato salad with all sorts of yummy Mexican flavors added in!
There are endless opportunities to serve Mexican potato salad, it’s perfect for a simple “Taco Tuesday” meal such as Tortilla Empanadas, which can all be prepped a day ahead!
Other times this can be served is when having Grilled Steak with Chimichurri Sauce, Chicken Enchiladas with Green Sauce, or even Shrimp Tacos.
Potato salad starts with the all-mighty spud. For this recipe, I chose Yukon gold potatoes. You can use any variety of potatoes, but I’m partial to the gold potatoes. They are more tender and less starchy than other varieties. The skin on Yukon gold potatoes is so thin, give them a good scrub and you won’t have to peel them.
A great time-saving bonus of using gold potatoes. I boil whole potatoes in a 5 qt pot of water, then once they are done cooking and easily pierced with a knife about 15-20 minutes. The potatoes are then drained and rinsed in cold water. Then either cut the potatoes warm or chill the potatoes and then cut them.
Often, I’ll boil the potatoes the day before I’m planning on serving them so the potatoes are firm and cold. And once the remaining ingredients are added the flavors really meld together once refrigerated.
The next component is Classic Potato Salad is mayo, use what you prefer. I grew up on Hellman’s so I either use that or I make this mayonnaise recipe it only takes a minute to make and it tastes so fantastic!
A key component in potato salad you’ll often find is pickles or dill relish…
you can add some great pickled flavor to this potato salad by adding
any of those will give you that tasty tangy flavor perfect for this potato salad. If you’re not a fan of pickled vegetables, leave it out.
This Mexican potato salad can easily be adapted to Mexican street corn potato salad, budding charred corn like I did to give it a nice flavor and added texture. Add more corn if you want to give more corn flavor, and add 1/2 cup crumbled cotija cheese for that delicious street corn flavor. Do not miss on the browning of the corn, it gives it a really nice nutty flavor, steamed corn flavor just does not compare.
There are so many great options to give this potato salad recipe some fun flavor, you an add 1/2-1 teaspoon cumin if you love that flavor.
I’ve added chili powder and paprika. I used both regular paprika and smoked paprika. Diced chipotle peppers are a great smokey option to add if you like that smokey warm flavor.
Another great side dish along these same lines is my Mexican Street Corn Macaroni Salad.
Other items to enjoy on your Mexican inspired eating are:
or how about something for after dinner
- Frozen Strawberry Margarita Pie
- Margarita Scones
- Horchata Cookies
- Mexican-Italian Wedding Cookies
- Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes
- Avocado Cheesecake with Pistachio Crust
Mexican Potato Salad
Ingredients
- 2 lbs yukon gold potatoes
- 1/2-3/4 cups mayo, store bough or homemade homemade recipe link in post
- 1/4 cup dice red onion regular or pickled onions for a tangy flavor
- 1 whole jalapeno, diced or pickled jalapenos diced
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika (regular)
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 ear corn on the cob, browned/charred over on the grill or stove top flame, orin a skillet. or 1/2- 1 cup frozen corn
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 1/4 cup diced cilantro about 15-20 stems
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Scrub potatoes, then place whole potatoes in a pot of water. Cover potatoes by 1 inch of water, bring to a boil.
- Cook the potatoes until a knife comes out easily usually taking 15-20 minutes. You want the potatoes to be tender because consuming cold "hard" potatoes isn't the desired texture.
- Drain the potatoes when the desired doneness is reached.
- Fill the pot of potatoes with cold water and let the potatoes sit in the cold water for 5 minutes. Add ice if you need to chill them faster.
- Cut potatoes into 1 inch chunks, or place potatoes in the fridge if you want to wait until they are cold.
- In a medium bowl add diced potatoes, mayo, onion, jalapeno, chili powder, paprika, smoked paprika, cilantro, corn, lime juice, along with salt and pepper.
- Stir well to combine all the ingredients.
- Chill the potato salad, this will enhance the flavor of the potato salad.
- Keep potato salad chilled until ready to serve.
- If you want to reserve a tablespoon of some items to top the potato salad for after it's all mixed for a pretty presentation.