In this vegan potato salad recipe, potatoes are tossed with crunchy vegetables like fennel and celery, herbs like dill and parsley, then topped with a light and tangy dill pickle vinaigrette dressing. This vegan potato salad is made without mayo.
Keeping it simple and tasty this week. I love pickles. I love vinaigrette-dressed potato salads. Excessive amounts of dill? Another thing that I love! Why not combine all of those loves into one perfect dill pickle-dressed potato salad? I have lots of vegan salad recipes for inspiration if you’re in need.
I’ve been making a version of this for a while, and now have a mental block around potato salads that don’t include pickles. There’s an amazing caramelized onion potato salad in my cookbook that features, you guessed it, pickles! I also have a creamy dill pickle salad recipe without potatoes! I know what I like and I’m sticking to it.
What sets my version of vegan potato salad apart: we have chopped fennel and celery for crunch, lots of chopped pickles, red onion, heavy hands of dill and parsley, and a good amount of pickle brine IN the dressing!
I love having a container of this vegan potato salad on hand as a base for our work-from-home lunches. I grab a big spoonful and add a handful of greens, a drizzle of olive oil and some lemon (or some sort of dressing), some chickpeas or lentils and some extra vegetables. Super easy and satisfying midday meal.
I usually just blend up a smoothie for lunch. But if I have a salad like this on hand (which takes 30 minutes to make), I’ll fix up a nice plate. I’m thinking I should make salads like this more often because I just can’t seem to pause and actually make a lunch most days. I like to keep going! I know that some of you will be able to relate.
Wishing you well from our corner of the world. Sending you a smile and a hug to keep going today!
Vegan Potato Salad with Dill Pickle Dressing
Ingredients
Dill Pickle Dressing
- 2 tablespoons dill pickle brine
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon grainy mustard
- 1 clove garlic, finely minced
- 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
Potato Salad
- 2 lbs mini potatoes
- ½ small red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 small fennel bulb, thinly sliced
- 1 stick celery, thinly sliced
- ½ cup chopped dill pickles
- ¼ cup fresh dill, chopped
- ¼ cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
Notes
- I used super crisp deli-style pickles that only contain a little bit of vinegar in the brine (I think they’re partially lactofermented? Where are my fermentation wizards?). I’ve made this with traditional dill pickles that are sold at room temperature too. All are good!
- If you don’t like fennel, simply omit it. You could add an extra chopped stick of celery or more chopped pickles if you like. Potato salad is pretty flexible :)
- Any time I’m adding raw garlic to a non-blended dressing, I finely grate it with my Microplane grater.
Instructions
- Make the dressing. In a sealable jar, combine the pickle brine, white wine vinegar, mustard, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Close the lid on top and shake vigorously. Check the dressing for seasoning and adjust if necessary. Set aside.
- Place the potatoes in a medium saucepan and cover them with cold water. Cover and place the saucepan on the stove over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Once boiling, remove the lid and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook until potatoes are just-tender, about 12-14 minutes. Drain the potatoes and allow them to cool just slightly.
- Once the potatoes are cool enough to handle (but ideally still warm), cut them into quarters and transfer to a large bowl. Pour half of the dressing over the warm, cut potatoes, season them liberally with salt and pepper, and toss to combine. Let the lightly dressed potatoes sit until they are completely cool.
- Once the lightly dressed potatoes are cool, add the red onion, fennel, celery, chopped dill pickles, fresh dill, parsley, the remaining dressing, and more salt and pepper. Toss to combine. Taste some of the salad to check for seasoning and adjust to your preference (more pickle brine, salt, pepper, dill etc).
- This potato salad needs to sit for at least an hour to develop flavour. Cover the dill pickle potato salad and let it sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving, and up to 5 days total.
Yay! It’s Farmer’s Market day! I know what’s on MY list. Thanks for this.
This is making me hungry. I’m making it for dinner. Thank you. I LOVE your blog and recipes. I can do this. I’m trying to slowly switch to vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian. Thanks for sharing.
This potato salad is super-wonderful! I made it to go with lunch today. Because of certain food restrictions, I can’t always eat your recipes, but this one works fine.
I buy my pickles at the farmers market and the guy who sells them to me says that only one of his many varieties of pickles is actually probiotic, because most of what he sells has been heated at some point in the preparation.
So they may all be fermnented at some point, but few of them retain their probiotic quality by the time you eat them.
I buy the probiotic ones ;-)
This is the greatest potato salad I’ve ever had. It is chef’s kiss perfection. My only changes were a shallot instead of red onion (needed to use it up) and rice wine vinegar because I didn’t have white wine vinegar. Definitely need to try this with some spicy pickles next time.
I loved this recipe!! Had to make a few substitutions– more celery/no fennel, russet potatoes, and sweet onion. Absolutely delicious. Can’t wait to make it again as written. Thanks!
This potato salad is delicious! Didn’t have fennel so used celery & I might have tripled the amount of dill pickles. 1/2 cup pickles to 2 lbs potatoes isn’t enough for me. I need the sour crunch with every bite! Thank you for your unique recipes & wise words.
I made this tonight and it was outstanding. I didn’t have time to let it refrigerate but it was still delicious served warm. It made me think of summer BBQs. Hope to bring this to a party this summer!
This looks amazing! Can i make this with Yukon golds, chopped into bite size pieces?
Hi Allison! Chopped up yukon gold potatoes would be great here.
-L
So yummy. Roasted my potatoes and added in some roasted cauliflower. Topped with crunchy almonds to make it a meal! So good, thank you
Very unique and delicious potato salad!
Made it for the 2nd time! Absolutely BOMB!!!!!
This is a good recipe to prepare in a short time and healthy too. Veganism is good for health. Salads are good for vegan meals. It looks really good and I think it will taste very good. I try this salad in my vegan meal plan.