French-Style Potato Salad | A mayo-less potato salad for summer!

It is summer, and that means it's potato salad season, so to freshen it up, I'm doing a French-style potato salad, bright flavors, really simple preparation, all with a secret ingredient in this potato. I think it's gonna surprise you, so let's dig in and make it. This is a French-style potato salad, and what that means is it's gonna be a beautiful vinaigrette on it that is bright, that is cheery, dare I say, kind of mustard-based, but so good, as opposed to a traditional, maybe American-style potato salad that has a more creamy dressing on it, which I have a great recipe for on my website if you wanna go check that out. It is such a good one, but this is, to me, every time I make this, it is gone in seconds. I get so many compliments on it because it just has really good flavors, and how we're gonna switch it up is with the potato. You can use any other potato. Yukon Gold would be great with this. I am using a white sweet potato, and I think that is essential for this, because what it is is it looks like a white potato. It has a high starch content like a traditional baking potato would, but it has that sweeter edge to it, and it has a little bit of that sweet potato flavor. So to me, when you are mixing this in with that kind of vinaigrette we're gonna make, there is just nothing compared to this. Now, I live in Iowa, okay? And we don't always have everything in Iowa, but I have a couple different grocery stores that have white sweet potatoes, and so if that means I can find them, I'm pretty sure you can too, because if we have them, usually everyone else does. I don't like to say that everything comes here last, but it might. So I have grown white sweet potatoes in the past. They're a pretty easy one to grow, but they're also pretty easy to find. And what I love about them is that beautiful sweetness that we love in any potato, especially a sweet potato, and the flavor. And so to me, it mixes so well with this potato salt. Now, what I'm doing is I'm gonna start, instead of boiling them in water, which I think kind of dilutes the flavor, adds water, don't wanna do that, I wanna roast them. You know I love to roast anything. What this is going to do is heighten the flavor. It's going to add that beautiful kind of caramelized flavor to them and really bring out a much better quality. So what I wanna do is toss them with this olive oil, which I think is essential to make sure they're well coated so they roast well. I spread them out into an even layer. You can see, I kept them somewhat big. I'm gonna cut this one. I like to have them about half to three quarter, maybe sometimes an inch in size. I like a nice heft to the potato here. Now what I'm gonna do is I wash my hands. I'm going to salt and pepper them well. So this is our first layer of seasoning that we have the ability to do. So obviously the dressing, the vinaigrette we're gonna create is gonna have seasoning in it too. But this is going to help them have flavor right in the beginning. And that to me is essential. So I'm sprinkling that over. I have some fresh cracked pepper here and I'm gonna sprinkle that. This is just, think like this would be a side dish you could get ready on a weekday night or something like that. But we're going to dress it up even further, make it into really what is a summery dish, perfect for going to a picnic. You know what's great about this one? Since it's not mayonnaise based, you don't have to quite worry about keeping it quite as chilled as a mayonnaise based one. So win-win if you ask me. So we're gonna throw this now right into the oven. High heat, I'm gonna let it roast until it's nice and browned. The potatoes are done. You can see I like them to get a little bit of brown on them. They still hold their shape really well, which is what I want too. They're just perfect, they're creamy inside. Sweet potatoes are magical and these white sweet potatoes to me are just the best to keep on hand. So I'm chopping up garlic, mincing it and it takes a good amount of garlic because that's a lot of potatoes and you really want to exude that flavor. So what I'm doing is making sure I add it all right in. Now, can you use, this is always a question I get, can you use the pre-chopped garlic in a jar? You can. I think it has sometimes an acrid flavor and really there's something to me beautiful and organic about being able just to chop something up. You know, it takes a few seconds but I think it gets a better product in the end. So I'm taking shallot now and I'm just chopping it, mincing it slightly but not a fine mince. So really what shallot is is a lighter onion flavor. It's a little bit sweeter and I think it's essential when we're using something like a nice vinaigrette with this. It's not near as astringent as even a red onion can be but you can notice just by the smell. It's just a nice lighter thing. I'm gonna add that in. So already we have the base for pretty much what I would call a perfect vinaigrette. So on top of this, we have everything here that goes in. Now, it's gonna look like a lot and it is a lot but it's Dijon mustard. So let's talk about the two types of mustard we're using as I grab a spoon here. We have Dijon, perfect flavor and it really adds kind of this creaminess without any type of cream or fat. It just adds a nice kind of heft to it. We're gonna cut that with some whole grain mustard which has a different flavor. It's completely different. If you don't like Dijon, whole grain is completely different so don't get scared of that. It's so good and we're gonna add some white wine vinegar. I usually make my own at home from leftover. I know, everyone's always like leftover wine, who has that? I have some sometimes when I cook with it and I make vinegar with it. Just dump it into a bottle. Now, I'm gonna take my lemon. It has a fresher flavor. So we have two types of acidity. We have that vinegar and we have fresh lemon juice which really kind of opens up a different type of acidity and I think really adds just like that perfect element. Making sure it doesn't have seeds. See, this half did. Every so often you're gonna think, oh, there's no seeds and the other half seems to always have them. We're gonna add a little bit of honey. So what the honey does is obviously balance out the flavors. We have lots of strong acidity in here. We have mustard, we have vinegar, we have lemon juice. The honey is gonna add that kind of offset that to me works really well. Little bit more salt. Remember, we salted the potatoes to begin with but you still wanna add some in here too to layer at every step. Little bit of black pepper and then a whole lot of olive oil. And so the olive oil is what's gonna round it out. You want a nice, bright, beautiful olive oil. I always think this is your chance to have one that has a little bit more flavor and spice to it if you want to and then I'm just gonna whisk this all together. I'm getting my herbs ready. I just mixed this together and it's a beautiful amount of vinaigrette and what you have to remember is those potatoes are still gonna be warm which I like to add them when they're a little warm and they soak it in. So what I have here is, to me, the essentials. I have some tarragon, French tarragon. It has a beautiful flavor that, mm, like a slight anise-y flavor. Works really well with dill and then just some fresh parsley. So I just went out to my pots of herbs I have on the back patio and I just wanna rough chop some of these because this is really your chance to use herbs in their fullest meaning we're not gonna, these are gonna shine bright because there's minimal ingredients in here and that's really what I wanted you to see is that you can use minimal ingredients that have a huge flavor impact and we're using the fresh things of summer already. This dill, the tarragon, even the parsley, fresh parsley, good Italian parsley. Flat leaf is what I like to use. I think has so much flavor. So what I'm gonna do is add these right in here to the side and I'm gonna put in all the potatoes. So this is the best part. I think it's best if you can make this maybe a couple hours before you wanna serve it just so those flavors can really work together and kinda meld. But if you want to, you can wait a little bit longer and just keep it in the fridge. You can serve it fresh. Don't think you can't. It's just, man, when you can let it sit and marry a little bit, it becomes something even more special. So you sort of fold all this together and again, I like to do it when the potatoes are warm. It's okay if they come down to room temperature. Don't be too worried about that. But can you see already how it's just a fresh, beautiful salad? You get that vinaigrette that just coats everything and the potatoes will really begin to kinda soak it in. But do you see how they're keeping their shape too? That's what I think is indicative of this salad and really needed is to be able to keep their shape and their texture because that is what brings it all together. My mouth is watering. It smells so good. To me, it smells like summer because you have all these fresh flavors of summer in this. Brightness, herbs, everything coming together. Look at this. This, to me, is a beautiful way to serve it. A big platter or bowl, just be able to open it up so you can see everything, enjoy everything with your eyes before you actually dig into it. Now, yes, let it sit usually, but I can't wait. So I'm just gonna go ahead. Look at how that vinaigrette clings to it. That's so good. What I love is this is great room temperature. It's great warm and it's great cold after it sits for a little bit. Everything keeps working together and it's perfect for any type of barbecue if you're gonna be outside, any type of side dish if you wanna be inside. It really doesn't matter. This can work with so many different things. It's a super simple. And even almost quick, I would say, pretty hands-off potato salad. So if you're looking for something different to try, if you're looking for something that is nostalgic in the potato salad sense, but new and maybe bright to you in flavor, this is the one to go with. I hope you share this video around so other people can see how easy it is to make good food at home. If I can do it, anybody can do it. Check my website, wyseguy.com for this recipe and all my others. Until then, happy summer.