Italian Potato Salad

My original goal for Memorial Day was to make two different potato salads and write a blog post called Potato Salad Two Ways.  Well, I decided at some point this morning that I am tired of spending the whole day in the kitchen on holidays, and that I was going to keep this meal simple.  

Last year, my daughters didn't like the potato salad I make with mayonnaise.  There are only three things I will eat with mayonnaise -- my potato salad, my tuna salad, and my husband's egg salad.  I knew my mom made a potato salad with oil and vinegar, so I called her for the recipe.  I changed things up a bit to suit our tastes and make things easier, and everyone loved it.  

This dish has 7 simple ingredients and was really easy to put together.  

I definitely plan on making Italian potato salad again on the 4th of July.  It's a perfect side dish to serve with hamburgers.  

Italian Potato Salad

Ingredients

4 lbs small organic red skin potatoes

1 lb bacon 

8 hard boiled eggs -- chopped

4 to 5 T extra virgin olive oil

4 to 5 T white balsamic vinegar

Kosher salt

Coarse ground black pepper

Optional -- chopped fresh parsley, scallions, or chives

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and put the bacon on a large rimmed baking sheet in a single layer.  Cook the bacon for about 15 to 17 minutes, until crisp.  When it is done cooking, lay the bacon out on a plate with paper towels to remove the grease, then cut it into 1/2 inch pieces.

Wash and scrub the potatoes, place them in a large pot and cover them with water, then bring them to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium, and cook the potatoes until they can be easily pierced with a fork or knife.  While still hot, cut each potato into 4 slices.  

In a 10 by 10 inch baking dish that is at least 2 1/2 inches deep, put down a single layer of warm potatoes.  Drizzle the potatoes with 1 tablespoon of oil and one tablespoon of vinegar.  Add salt and pepper, to taste, then 1/4 of the egg and bacon. Repeat each step until you have 4 layers total. 

This dish is best prepared about 30 to 60 minutes before serving. 

Serves 8 to 10

Recipe Notes

My mom likes to remove the skin from her larger red skin potatoes, cut them into slices, then boil them.  I decided to leave the skin on, which is much easier, and our potato salad tasted great.  She also uses a green element, like scallions, chives, or parsley, but I was afraid my girls would not eat it, and I thought the dish was perfect without it.  My mom recommended I use a darker balsamic vinegar, but I always prefer white.  

Before serving, you can drizzle one last tablespoon of olive oil and vinegar on top.  If you have refrigerated your potato salad for a while, you could take it out of the fridge for about 20 to 30 minutes before serving it to let it warm up a bit.  We made our potato salad about an hour before we served it, and put it in the fridge until right before we were ready to eat.

We hard boiled our eggs first, then put them in the refrigerator until we were ready to use them.  I did not put directions for hard boiling the eggs in this recipe because for the life of me, I cannot hard boil an egg.  They never seem to cook!  I recently used a foolproof method that I learned on The Chew and my eggs were still not cooked enough.  I let my husband take care of them today because he never seems to have any trouble with eggs.  :-)

What do you like to put on your potato salad?

Linked to: Gluten-Free Wednesdays