Potato salad was one of the few potluck staples that my mom was willing to slap together for a picnic. Hers consisted of chopped and boiled potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, celery, a hint of diced white onions, a ginormous glob of yellow mustard, way too much Miracle Whip, and a light dusting of salt, pepper, and paprika.
Because of that recipe, I thought I hated potato salad.
It turns out, however, that potato salad can be absolutely fantastic. My go-to Americanized potato salad recipe is Martha Stewart’s Deviled Egg Potato Salad, to which I add a cup of diced dill pickles and a quarter cup of chopped dill, and substitute pickle juice for the white wine vinegar. It’s a family favorite.
Another yummy option I’ve recently tried is Lane Milne’s Southern treasure, Goldee’s Creamy Potato Salad. Yes, ma’am. It’s thick, authentically Southern, and blended with a scratch salad dressing that can be whipped up in your blender.
But what about German potato salad? The one and only time I’ve eaten it (before making it) was at Penn Brewery. Though their recipes are all traditional German staples — and I loved their schnitzel and their Spätzle — the potato salad was too sweet and too vinegary for my taste.
I wonder why my mom, who is as German as they come, never tried her hand at this dish rather than whipping up 1980s American potato salad. Or if she even knew about it.
After looking at several recipes for German potato salad with roots in Pennsylvania, I found a hybrid German-American potato salad with a lighter dose of sugar and vinegar that feels perfectly Pennsylvanian.
This recipe was written by Jean Klein. I can surmise that the VFW Auxiliary Cookbook, in which I found this wonderful potato salad, was published in 1964 since it was created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the VFW Auxiliary. The Auxiliary was founded in Pittsburgh in 1914.
The original recipe reads as follows:
- 4 large potatoes, chopped and boiled
- 4 slices bacon, browned and chopped
- 1 thinly sliced onion
- 2 tbsp. vinegar
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp sugar
- ½ tsp. salt
- ¼ tsp. dry mustard
- Dash pepper
- Dash paprika
Cut potatoes into bite-sized pieces. Boil until tender. Cook bacon, cool, and set aside. Mix sugar, salt, spices, vinegar, and sour cream. Mix with potatoes, onions, and bacon.
I followed the original recipe mostly to the letter. One change I made was using a colorful mix of mini potatoes instead of large baking potatoes. I’m a fan of pretty colors. And since the onions I had on hand were huge, I used half an onion instead of a whole one. I also added a bit more salt.
Considering that the recipe doesn’t specify the type of vinegar, I did a little research to discover which vinegar works best in a German potato salad. Most folks suggested plain white vinegar; others suggested apple cider vinegar, while a few suggested using an authentic German vinegar called Essig Essenz. Normally, I would get as close to the authentic recipe as possible. But this was made in Pa. in the 1960s, not Bavaria, so I opted to use white vinegar. Unfortunately, I spilled my remaining white vinegar while pulling it out of the pantry. So I had no choice but to use the apple cider vinegar I had on hand.
To cook the onions or not? This time, I opted for not. But next time, I will lightly cook the onions in bacon grease.
Making the potatoes and bacon a day ahead, I was able to put the rest of the salad together in just a few minutes. So if you’re heading to a potluck last minute or have very little free time, this is a great time-saving option.
Check out the updated recipe below! And don’t forget to print a copy for yourself.
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2025.
