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Potatoes are a staple at my family gatherings in one form or another. Cheesy potatoes at Thanksgiving and Christmas, baked potatoes loaded with chili for Halloween, and the ever present potato salad at all summer events. I’ve never been a fan of any kind of mayo… so I took up the challenge to make a vegan dill potato salad recipe only using fresh dill, creamy mustards and olive oil to bring color and flavor to your next BBQ.
What Makes this Potato Salad Vegan?
Traditional potato salad has eggs either in the mayonnaise or hard boiled in the salad itself. My potato salad swaps the mayo for a delicious olive oil + mustard blend dressing, and loads up on fresh veggies.
Switching from a mayonnaise base to an olive oil one also lightens up the salad a bit. I find mayonnaise-based dishes are fairly heavy, while this lovely recipe remains light and bright… plus, it’s just SO colorful without that white sauce covering everything up!
Tips for Vegan Potato Salad
What are your must-have ingredients for potato salad? Mine include dill pickles, fresh dill, and black olives… because those were always in the salads of my childhood. Yet the original salads from my childhood weren’t vegan, so I love the new take this vegan potato salad recipe has on the classic dish.
I don’t peel the red potatoes for my salad, as boiling them with the skin on helps retain more nutrients. Dijon mustard elevates the flavor in this recipe, so that is my go-to in the dressing.
Potato Salad Ingredient Swaps
- I love recipes where I can easily sub in what I have on hand, and this potato salad is just such a recipe. If radishes aren’t your thing, then swap them with diced cucumbers or corn to keep in a bit of fresh crunch.
- If you really want the feel of a traditional potato salad, then swap in a vegan mayonnaise. These tend to be more processed, yet can give you the feel of enjoying your family’s fav old recipe and that extra creaminess.
- The pop of color in the red potatoes is super fun, yet feel free to use any potato you want (Yukon golds work great too!). If you really want a fresh change up, try using a white sweet potato… and then let me know how it turns out!
- While I love using Claussen pickles for this recipe, I bet a lot of you have great local options you might prefer. I’m a true pickle lover, so tell me your fav kind and I’ll give it a try. For a less vinegary taste, try sweet pickles.
More Scrumptious Vegan Side Dishes
I’ve got so many great vegan salads and side dishes you can share at your next backyard BBQ. Just pick the flavors that you want and get choppin’:
If you make this vegan dill potato salad, please let me know in the comments how it turned out!
Vegan Dill Potato Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups golden potatoes chopped into 1/2″ cubes
- 2 tbsp red onions diced
- 1 stalk celery diced
- 1 garlic clove minced
- 2 tbsp black olives sliced
- 1 radish halved and thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp dill pickles diced
Dressing
- 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp pickle juice
- 1 tbsp fresh dill stems removed + finely chopped
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- โ tsp ground turmeric
- โ black pepper
- โ smoked paprika
Instructions
- Place the potatoes in a large pot with cold water. Bring to boil then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes or until fork-tender. Drain the potatoes, set aside to cool to room temperature.
- In a large bowl, mix all dressing ingredients together.
- Add the potatoes and remaining vegetables and herbs into the dressing and stir well.
- Garnish with radishes and paprika.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Vegan Dill Potato Salad Common Questions
Traditional potato salad has eggs in it, either in the mayonnaise or hard boiled. My potato salad swaps the mayo for a delicious olive oil based dressing, and loads up on fresh veggies.
I’ve had it both ways! The potatoes are cooked, yet I like mine to chill a bit in the fridge before serving. Honestly, letting the salad refrigerate overnight before serving will bring out the best flavor.
I love using red potatoes. They are super easy to slice up, and taste delicious. You can also use Yukon Gold potatoes for a buttery taste.
Best potato salad without any mayonnaise. Love the pickle
Delicious, fresh taste and great textures! It’s a winner!
A fun crunchy alternative to classic potato salad! I substituted sweet pickles for dill and added red pepper in for more color. Might try adding shaved brussel sprouts next time and doubling the dressing amount. It was a challenge to go without mayo & eggs, but definitely worth experimenting with again!
I love potatoes! Most traditional potato salads are way to slimy for me, and I donโt like mayonnaise, so this recipe is a great alternative! I skipped the olives because Iโm not a fan. The raw veggies, especially the celery and radishes (I used extra) gave it a nice crunch. Iโm curious to know how it would have tasted with Dijon mustard as this ingredient was left out of the version in the current salad challenge. It was just a tad bland, although the dill and pickles gave it a little salt/flavour. Look forward to making this for a family bbq.
This was a close tie with the Taco Salad. Really enjoyed both.
I do find it frustrating that the recipe sent in the email is different from the recipe and info in the link where we do the review. Little unsure of which one I’m suppose to follow.
I liked the crunch of this potato salad. I had never seen a recipe to add the radish and I think it complemented the salad nicely. The Dijon mustard, left out of the 10 salad challenge recipe would definitely have helped.
Not a fan of potato salad of any kind. And I donโt like olives and radishes. It had a good flavor though.
I absolutely hate mayonnaise and the standard potato salad. Seeing as this potato salad avoids a creamy dressing, I actually liked it quite a bit. I don’t like pickles, so I used pickled daikon and vinegar as substitutes. Overall, it was quite tasty and better than I was expecting.
This recipe was a hot at my house. Everyone loved it!
Winner! Very flavorful and a great preview for a summer bbq side dish!
Pretty good for potato salad – great alternative to the traditional version drowning in mayonnaise. Iโm not really a potato salad person so jumped at the idea posted by a fellow Salad Challenger to use steamed Cauliflower (I included both potato and cauliflower) – definitely preferred the cauliflower parts. It was reminiscent of an antipasto – I could lean into swapping all of the potato next time for roasted (or grilled) veggies. The dressing was flavourful and paired well with the other ingredients. Olives are a hard on for me so I substituted red bell pepper for colour and crunch.
Your salad sounds amazing, I love the idea of swapping out the potatoes for cauliflower!
I loved the triple dill flavoring, fresh dill, pickle juice and diced pickles. We are pickle hounds here though.
I thought the radish and celery added a nice crunch.
Unfortunately the pickle juice flavor was not my favorite. I like the other veggies in the potatoe salad gave it a nice crunch.
I loved this! I wish I could try it with pickles but Iโm not eating salt right now or oil so I subbed tahini and added some celery seed.
This is great for a side dish, but general family consensus is that itโs bland. I ended up playing with the dressing by adding some extra dijon, a splash of rice vinegar and some maple syrup. This gave it a little extra zing and made it more to my liking. I donโt miss the mayo one bit, however.
Sorry I just can’t do that vinegary/acidy, but I’m out voted by 2/3 of the household. They love it. I have to omit pickles, radishes, olives, and raw garlic. I keep the celery and like the idea of cucumber for crunch. Red potatoes, red onion only after soaking in water at least 10 mins. little cider vinegar, avo and infused olive oil, s&p, cayenne, paprika.
Wow! My favorite so far, by far. My husband ate the second serving “even though it doesn’t have mayonnaise”. This will be a reoccurring recipe for us!
Was easy to make, great flavor another recipe added to my collection