You don’t need mayo for a terrific Potato Salad! The secret is to marinate the potato so it sucks up flavour. This Lemon Potato Salad is bright, zesty and well seasoned. Great warm, at room temp, on the day and the day after!
For a healthy creamy alternative, try this Potato Salad with a no-mayo Creamy Potato Salad Dressing OR no-mayo Creamy Lemon Dressing!
I realised it’s been far too long since I shared a potato recipe and had to rectify that immediately.
Plus I wanted to share something super simple after doing Biryani on Friday. There’s no doubt that one of the aspects that I love the most about my job is creating the more challenging recipes. The whole process from start to finish – starting with research, developing, testing it over and over again, photographing, filming, editing the video, reading and responding to comments and questions.
Let me clarify, “research” involves going to restaurants for taste testing. It’s a tough, tough gig….
BUT! The post taste testing part is actually quite hard work – so I need to share something super simple today to recover! 😂 So today’s recipe is a simple, bright, no-mayo Lemon Potato Salad.
MARINATE YOUR POTATOES!
There’s nothing more disappointing than biting into a generous sized piece of potato with any kind of dressing – mayo or non mayo – only to find the inside of the potato tastes of nothing more than unseasoned potato.
Solution: Douse your potatoes with dressing while hot. They act as a sponge and suck up all the flavour. It’s SO GOOD you almost don’t need to add any other dressing to it!
NO MAYO POTATO SALADS are in hot demand!
While I have a huge soft spot for the classic Creamy Potato Salad which is in great demand around holiday season, I make this no-mayo Lemon Potato Salad far more often throughout the year. It’s particularly in great demand by my friends, most of whom are anti-mayo for varying reasons.
There’s plenty of variations like this No-Mayo Red Potato Salad with Charred Corn and Bacon or my German Potato Salad. Just don’t skip the marinating for both! I promise it’s worth it. ❤️ – Nagi x
PS I’ve called it a Lemon Potato Salad, and lemon flavour you shall get. It’s not the juice – that’s just sour. The lemon flavour is in the zest. So if you want a lemon flavoured potato salad, don’t skip the zest!
MORE POTATO SIDES
- Mrs Brodie’s Famous Potato Salad with bacon
- Roasted Sweet Potato Salad
- Truly Crunchy Roast Potatoes (and I mean seriously crunchy!)
- Crispy SMASHED Potatoes – a crowd favourite!
- Parmesan Crusted Potatoes
- See all Potato recipes
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
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Lemon Potato Salad
Ingredients
- 1 kg / 2 lb baby potatoes (Note 1)
- 2 tbsp salt (for water)
- 1 cup green onions , sliced
- 1/4 cup parsley , finely chopped
Dressing:
- 5 tbsp / 75 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup / 65 ml lemon juice
- 1 tbsp lemon zest (1 large lemon)
- 1 garlic clove, large, minced
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1.5 tsp sugar
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Instructions
- Dressing: Shake in a jar.
Potatoes:
- Halve so they are about 2.5cm / 1″ pieces (cut large ones into 3).
- Bring 4 litres / 4 quarts water to the boil, add salt. Add potatoes, bring back up to the boil then reduce to simmer. Cook for 5 minutes or until just cooked – don’t let them overcook or become too soft, they will keep cooking from residual heat.
- Drain and immediately transfer to a bowl.
Potato Salad:
- While potatoes are hot, pour over half the Dressing. Use rubber spatular to gently stir.
- Set aside to marinate for at least 30 minutes, even overnight.
- Add green onions and parsley, pour over remaining Dressing. Carefully toss with rubber spatular, then serve. Great warm or at room temperature, and it’s also great the next day.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
LIFE OF DOZER
Back to bounding around free at the park! That’s a smile you see on this face. 🙂 Under instructions for controlled off leash exercise though, so I had to take him somewhere without other dogs to tempt him. So this isn’t actually an off leash park…..
Wow this was such an unassuming dish! I thought it was going to be a normal potato salad but my oh my it was surprisingly delicious! The dressing seemed so simple but it was so tasty, I even used the excess to slather onto some pasta that I had. I added some fine green beans to the salad only because I had some sitting around in the fridge but it was really nice too. Will definitely do this one again. Thanks Nagi!
lemon potato salad (not for the first time), accompanied by fresh steamed green beans and hot smoked salmon from Tasmania. I also made your Creamy Dill sauce recipe. I’m growing heaps of lovely fresh dill in Brisbane. What a bonus,
Everything was absolutely superb 👏👍🥰👏😉😉
The best kind of recipe: super easy, super delicious. Will definitely make again!
I made this today as a side for a BBQ we hosted. OMG it was amazing. Thank you so much for this recipe ☺️
I really love potato salad I’m going to try it up
You will LOVE this one Zinhle! N x
Delicious salad, first attempt today and its gone in minutes. Thank you Nagi for such wonderful recipe and please continue to share with us your recipe 🙂
Now I love potatoes. But the official taste taster in this house (who is not nearly as cute as Dozer) is not that keen on them. It was a silent thank you from me to Nagi when the first mouthful of this gem was pronounced “lovely”. This one is in my tin.
I bet this would be good roasting the potatoes in lieu of boiling!
You could do that too Trish!! N x
Absolutely fabulous potato salad. Even better when I roasted the leftovers a few days later. A definite keeper, Thanks for the recipe
Wow! It was so good that I’ve made it twice this last week and doubled the recipe this last time to ensure leftovers. As suggested, I added some feta and some oregano and it was just out of this world. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!
Absolutely freaking delicious!!!…left out spring onions as didn’t have them but didn’t miss them. A great alternative to mayo based potato salads…zingy, fresh and fabulous with rich BBQ meats. Thank you Nagi!👍😁
Who needs freaking mayonnaise? Not me!!!
This salad is perfect for summer BBQ’s because it doesn’t need to hog space in the fridge and I suspect it would be fine at ambient temperature for several hours – but I don’t know for sure because it got completely wiped out in less than 20 minutes.
Our parsley plants have gone to seed so we subbed in some very finely chopped fresh rosemary and half a block of feta we had lurking in the fridge and it was glorious – carbs loaded with tangy, salty, herby fresh deliciousness. It’s so fantastic we’re making it again tomorrow (so I can have more than half a small potato and the scrapings from the bottom of the bowl this time…)
Top notch!
Hello. Could I replace the lemon with vinegar? Would you do the same proportion?
Hi Nagi can you make this the day before sorry if you have you wrote this down and I missed it
Hi Sharon – yes I’ve noted this in the recipe: Great warm or at room temperature, and it’s also great the next day. Enjoy! N x
Hi i made these last week and they were delicious. I peeled all the potatoes which takes ages with baby potatoes . Do I need to do this or can I do it with the skin on ?
Hi Grace, I never bother peeling – you can see the skin left on in the pictures 🙂 N x
I made the lemon Potato Salad, it was delicious! As promised the flavour went all the way through.
Excellent potato salad that was a crowd pleaser. Best part is that it didn’t have any mayo.
Easy recipe. Made it the night before and it had a very lemony flavour to it. Such a nice change from mayo.
I love this potato salad! Thanks so much for the great recipe. Lemon is one of my favorite ingredients and these are so flavorful. Made it for a bbq tonight for the first time and it was a hit!
Hi Nagi, if i use russet potatoes, do i need to peel them?
Going to try it tonight! Thanks!
Once again a winner Nagi – I am making this for the second time this week!! Serving it with your sticky grilled chicken…yum.
Im making this for a party tomorrow. I, of course, taste tested it & it’s amazing! I used honey instead of sugar & it’s perfect to mellow the lemon…just enough!
Yum! The perfect combo Karen!! N x