「ポテトサラダ」

This potato salad recipe is the yōshoku version of the everyday Western potato salad. Popular with everybody – kids, teenagers and adults too!

Potato salad is often seen as an entrée dish in restaurants, as a snack to go with izakaya drinking nights… and even in any refrigerated corner of major convenience stores.

It is a very tasty dish with dozen of colorful combination of ingredients. Slices of cucumber, carrot, ham, egg, onion… Each place may offer you an unique potato salad recipe, that’s one of the fun things about it!

First of all, in order to cook the potatoes, I used this interesting guide by Serious Eats. Take some time to read the article, because it will greatly improve the results of your dish. That will help you understand why do you need to follow the procedures (e.g. vinegar part) I listed below.

This is a very easy recipe with tons of variations. You’ll see here how I prepared it for these pictures, however, you may adapt the ingredients according to personal taste. In other words… time to be creative and have fun!

1. 2 potatoes
2. 2tbsp of salt (for the potatoes)
3. 1tbsp of vinegar (for the potatoes)
4. Half onion, diced.
5. 20g of cucumber, cut in slices.
6. 20g of ham, diced.
7. 2tbsp of Japanese mayonnaise
8. 1 hard boiled egg
9. 1tsp of vinegar
10. 1tsp of karashi mustard
11. Black pepper

1. Peel and cut the potatoes in cubes, half of bite size.
2. Put the potatoes in a deep pot, fill it with cold water.
3. Add 2tbsp of salt and 1tbsp of vinegar and set the heat to high.
4. After it starts boiling, cook for around 5 minutes, or until the middle of the potato is cooked but still firm.
5. Meanwhile, stir fry the onions until they become quite translucent.
6. Drain the potatoes and combine all ingredients together.
7. Mix until uniform.
8. Store in the fridge until cold.
9. Serve the dish.

This dish is certainly best served cold.

The main point that makes this a Japanese potato salad is the mayonnaise. For that reason, if you use other mayonnaise than the Japanese one, it might probably taste like a common potato salad.