Sunday, June 22, 2008

Pesto Potato Salad Recipe

(Sorry, I don't have a picture of the potato salad. I ended up not making it for our party, but I can tell you that it mostly looks like regular potato salad, but it's more along the lines of a green dish rather than white.)

This recipe come from one of those silly little recipe books that are in every grocery store check out lane in America. I have a bit of an addiction to buying them and in fact have so many that I couldn't find the exact recipe for the potato salad. But no worries. I have gotten to the point where no recipe card is necessary, although it may be challenging to write it down. But here goes:

about four cups of baby red potatoes
a few stalks (?) of celery, diced
one container of pesto (7 0z)
mayonnaise (I use Hellman's)
pine nuts
salt and pepper

Boil the red potatoes (leave the skins on) and cut in half or so after they have cooled

I use equal parts of pesto and mayo, so usually I dump the pesto into a bowl, fill up the pesto container with mayo and add that to the pesto. No need for measuring cups and it's easy to double the recipe, which I usually do if I am taking it to a potluck or something.

Add celery to the pesto/mayo and salt and pepper to taste. Add cooked potatoes and stir to coat the potatoes.

Pine nuts: Place pine nuts in a saute pan and heat them until brown. Keep shaking the pan to turn the nuts so they will brown evenly. And keep an eye on them; the nuts always act like they aren't cooking and then all of a sudden they are burned. Sprinkle the nuts over the potato salad right before serving.

Sorry I can't be more specific about the amounts. I just do it all by eye, adjusting the amounts to our preferences. For example we like our potato salad with a lot of the pesto/mayo and we also like a lot of pine nuts, although I have a tendency to make too many and then someone will just eat them separately. I usually use a handful or so of the pine nuts.

Oh and this recipe is really good when the potatoes are tossed into the dressing while still still warm and then served right away. We like it much better right away, rather than out of the fridge the next day.

And of course one could add other ingredients. Sometimes I add some cooked chicken and that is really good too.

Enjoy! And good luck:)

5 comments:

Susan Carlin said...

Thank you!!!

Melody said...

Ok, I'm making it this week. Thanks for posting it. Sounds delicious....

n warner said...

Yum...all the right stuff!
Sounds like a good start to summer...
:-) Nina

gary rith said...

YUMMO!
I have a potato salad recipe from Spain and it is this simple:
boil some cubed red skin potatoes until soft
chop up several (or more!) garlic cloves
mix garlic and potatoes with a little salt and pepper and enough mayo to hold it all together creamily--yummo too!

Tracy Helgeson said...

Glad you all like this!

Thanks, Gary for your recipe, GARLIC! sounds great!