Easy Japanese Potato Salad Recipe

Oh man, that just takes me right back. I'm Mark Matsumoto and welcome to my Tokyo kitchen. I've shown you my izakaya style potato salad before, but today I want to show you an easy Japanese potato salad recipe that's just like the one my mom used to make us when I was growing up. It's the perfect side dish for my tonkatsu or to pack into a bento box lunch. So let's start with a look at our ingredients. I'm using 500 grams of starchy potatoes like russet or yukon gold. For our veggies, I'm using 35 grams of onion, 100 grams of cucumber, and 100 grams of carrot. I'm also going to be using 75 grams of ham. The dressing is just 1 third of a cup of kewpie mayonnaise and a tablespoon of seasoned sushi vinegar. I'll link to my recipe in the video description below. The first thing you want to do is slice up your cucumber. I'm using a Japanese cucumber I got from my garden, but any cucumber with tender skin like Lebanese or English will work. Then I'm going to cut the onion up into a fine dice. Since this isn't a whole half of an onion, you can just cut it into slices in one direction and then turn the slices 90 degrees and chop it into a dice. Get the onions into a bowl along with the cucumbers and then I'm going to sprinkle on about a quarter teaspoon of salt. Then you just want to toss everything together so the salt evenly coats the veggies. This is going to dry out the extra moisture which will keep our potato salad from getting soggy. All right, I'm going to let these sweat while we prepare the other ingredients. For the potatoes, you want to start by giving them a good rinse and scrub in cold water to remove any dirt. Then you want to peel the potatoes. I like using a vegetable peeler to do this because it's faster and safer. You could also leave them unpeeled, but in Japan we almost always peel our potatoes. Be sure to remove any eyes in the potatoes using the tip of the peeler. Now I'm going to cut the potatoes into one inch cubes. They don't have to be perfect, but you want all the pieces to be about the same size so they cook through in about the same amount of time. Okay, let's get these into a pot of water so they don't discolor. For the carrots, I'm going to quarter them lengthwise. Then I'm going to chop them into 1 1⁄8 inch thick slices. Let's get these into the water with the potatoes. Now I'm going to set the pot onto the stove and turn the heat on to high heat to bring the water to a boil. When the water reaches a rolling boil, turn down the heat to maintain a gentle boil and let these cook until the potatoes are tender. This will take about 15 to 20 minutes. While we wait for the potatoes, I want to take a moment to thank all of you who've signed up for my weekly recipes over at MarksRecipes.com. If you haven't seen it yet, it's where I share hundreds of easy meal ideas that I cook for my family, including variations on this recipe like my ham and sweet potato salad, my tangy cilantro lime potato salad, and my no-mayo pickled cabbage and potato salad. I hope you'll head over and check it out. But first, let's finish up this recipe. The potatoes still need a bit more time, so I'm going to prep the dressing by adding the mayo and sushi vinegar to a large non-reactive bowl. Then I'm going to mix them together until I have a smooth, creamy dressing. Japanese-style mayo like Kewpie has more tartness and umami than western mayonnaise, so if you can find it, I highly recommend it. But you can still make this with other types of mayo. Alright, the dressing's done, so let's chop up some ham into half-inch squares. I'm using regular sandwich ham today, but you can use any kind of lunch meat you're into, including bacon or spam. Okay, it's been about 20 minutes, so let's check on the potatoes with a toothpick. As you can see, the toothpick slides in with almost no resistance, so these are good to go. I'm going to drain the potatoes and carrots in a colander. Give it a good shake to force out any excess water. Then you'll want to go right into the dressing while the potatoes are still piping hot. This helps ensure the dressing penetrates into the center of the potatoes. Now I'm just going to mix this together. One of the defining features of Japanese potato salad is that the potatoes are partially mashed. This gives the potato salad a creamy texture, so you can be pretty aggressive with your mixing. You'll want to mix this until the chunks of potatoes are about half of their original size. Okay, this is looking good. Our cucumbers and onions have been sweating for over 20 minutes now, so I'm going to give them a good massage with my hand. This will coax out even more water from the veggies, and you'll see them start to turn translucent. This changes the texture of the cucumber from crispy to crunchy while seasoning them all the way through. Now I'm going to gather up all the cucumbers and onions in my hand and squeeze out as much water as I can. Then I'm going to add these into our potato salad. I'm also going to add the ham. Now we just need to mix everything together to distribute things evenly. My ham was pretty salty, so I'm not going to add any extra salt, but give your potato salad a taste, and if it tastes like there's something missing, you can mix in some more salt to taste. To serve this up, I've got a plate garnished with some frill lettuce for a pop of color. I'm going to pile this into a tall mound, and our Japanese potato salad is ready to eat. All right, I'm going to try this out. Itadakimasu! All right, I'm going to go for a bite with all the different colors, some cucumbers, some ham, some carrots, and potato. It's rich and creamy, but the tartness of that sushi vinegar cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise and keeps it from getting cloying. And you've got a bunch of different textures in there, from the crunchy cucumbers and crispy onions to the soft and sweet carrots and potatoes. And that ham adds a nice bit of salt with a ton of umami that brings everything together. Japanese potato salad is one of those easy side dishes that comes together in minutes, but it works with almost anything, so I hope you'll give it a try. Well, I'm going to make a batch of this chicken katsu to go with my potato salad for dinner, but I'll catch you in the next one.