I grew up in a family that went to A LOT of church covered-dish dinners. On top of that, we celebrated EV-ER-Y thing with some sort of dinner. My grandma would make WAY too much food (because that’s what you do) and we’d spend a lot of time around the table with friends and family telling the same jokes and stories. I loved each of those times! Potato salad was at ALL of those covered dish dinners at church, and was always on the table at her house. In fact, the very first post I made on this blog was rooted in a realization I had last summer about a connection to my Grandma I made while I was making this very recipe for family and friends here at home.

So what’s so special about a silly potato salad? Honestly- I have no idea. It just takes like home; that’s all I can say. The recipe I’m sharing below is based on what my Grandma taught me, and has been doctored through the years as I’ve experimented with other things to achieve the ‘tangy’ taste hers used to have. (I’m not convinced she didn’t leave a couple of these ingredients out when she first gave me the recipe. It would’ve been like her to leave me a little something to figure out.)

There are a lot of ingredients here, but I promise you- each has a special role in making this potato salad so good you’ll be the hero of anyone who tries it.

Ingredients:

5 lbs Yukon gold potatoes
1 tablespoon table salt
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp Duke’s mayonnaise (Don’t play. Get you some Duke’s.)
1 cup of sweet pickle cubes (be sure to drain the pickle juice from them)

chopped red onion (start with 1/2 cup- but I almost always end up using more like 3/4 cup for texture)

chopped celery (again- start with 1/2 cup)
chopped green bell pepper (guess what…start with 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup chopped parsley (use flat leaf)
1/4 cup yellow mustard
1 jar (4 oz) of diced pimentos
2 Tablespoons of seasoned rice wine vinegar (check the asian food area of the grocer if you can’t find this with the other vinegars)
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 Tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1-2 tsp of celery salt (start with 1 and you can add more if you need to once everything is mixed together)
4 drops of hot sauce (I like Red Clay…and typically end up using more like 6-8 dashes)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Optional Ingredients: hard boiled eggs (I don’t like eggs, so I never add them) 1-2 jalapeño peppers chopped.

Preparation:

While you’re potatoes are boiling, chop your onion, celery, and bell pepper. Combine into a large bowl (big enough to mix everything together) (If you chose to add egg and/or jalapeño peppers, you can add them into the mixture with the chopped veggies.)

Add mayo, mustard, pimentos, pickle cubes, olive oil, lemon juice, hot sauce, seasoned rice wine vinegar, celery salt and smoked paprika to the copped veggies and stir together.

When potatoes have finished boiling/cooling down, cube the potatoes into the mixture and stir to coat the potatoes.

add salt and parsley; stir to coat the potato mixture

taste a bite (SMILE) and then add any dashes/touches of ingredients you want to make the potato salad exactly how you or your family like it.

Cover and stir.

This should make enough for 10-12 healthy servings. I recommend making it ahead of time if you can. The more time the ingredients have to ‘get happy’ together, the better this salad becomes.

I hope you enjoy this. If you make it, I’d love to hear what you think!

Ready for a hearty soup full of BOLD flavor? Well, I’ve got a fun recipe for you today! If you follow along on LetterJess over on the Instagram Stories platform, you may have seen this recipe come to life. If you haven’t seen that yet, don’t worry. I’m saving it as a highlight on the LetterJess account, and you’ll be able to refer to it in case you have questions about this recipe as you read here. Let me know if you have any questions, and I hope you love this as much as I do!

Ingredients:

1 5lb bag of yukon gold potatoes

1 lb of sausage (I use Jimmy Dean sage flavored sausage, but you can select any brand/flavor/type you love most. Experiment!)

1 bag of kale (I use most of the bag, but you can vary the amount based on how much you like what texture soup you prefer)

10 cups water

chicken bouillon (if you have the small cubes in the jar, use about 10, but adjust that number to 5 if you’re using the large or extra large cubes from the box.)

1 white onion, chopped

1 cup heavy cream

2-3 tablespoons of garlic puree (to taste)

Red Pepper Flakes (to taste; I give my sausage a good covering of flakes, but if you don’t like spicy food, use less.)

pinch of salt

Wine or cocktail (none goes in the soup, but I think having a sip or two of something fun while I’m cooking is always fun. :) )

Directions:

Chop your onion and peel your potatoes so they are ready when needed.
Saute your sausage. Be sure to add your red pepper flakes while the sausage is cooking. Cover and set sausage aside for later. (Don’t refrigerate)
In the same pan you just used to cook the sausage, saute your garlic and onion together.
Add your chicken bouillon cubes to your onion/garlic mixture in 10 cups of water and bring to a boil.
While you’re waiting for your water to boil, cut your potatoes into cubes. I vary the size/shape of my potato cubes to help the texture of the soup
Add the potatoes to your boiling water. Bring the water back to a boil. Let potatoes boil about 30 minutes.
Add heavy cream (1 cup) to the soup and let it come back to boil.
Add the sausage/red pepper flakes you set aside earlier. Let boil for another couple minutes.
Add Kale and let cook last few minutes.

While cooking this yesterday I had a couple people ask if you could add bacon. YES! I used to add bacon to the sausage while i was cooking it but didn’t think it made a huge difference. Another friend highly recommends adding bacon crumbles to the top before you serve.

This is a hearty soup that doesn’t need much to fill you up. I do like to heat up some garlic breadsticks or even biscuits to dip in the soup. I also enjoy serving this with white wine that isn’t overly oaked.

Let me know when you make this! I hope you love it like I do.