For Potato Salad Packed With Flavor, Add A Splash Of This Spicy Liquid Most People Throw Away

While there are tons of tasty takes on potato salad from around the world, when peak picnic season hits, it can seem like if you've seen one mayo-laden starchy vegetable combo, you've seen them all. But that's simply not true. There's an ingredient you can add that blends into the dish seamlessly while adding a bright twist on the usually mundane picnic favorite: a bit of pickled jalapeño brine. Even the small amount left at the bottom of a finished jar you might normally throw out is enough to give your potato salad some extra zing.

Your standard basic potato salad recipe is generally pretty mild. On the extremely plain end, the seasonings might be limited to just table salt and black pepper. But this lack of flavor means that there's more room for stronger additions like jalapeño brine. 

If the mere mention of the spicy peppers starts to make your eyes water, or you plan to dine with the highly spice-averse, worry not. For one, today's jalapeños are probably not as spicy as you remember, thanks to selective breeding in the name of standardizing the produce on grocery shelves. Sure, some of the fire that they have retained will seep into the brine. 

Your greatest challenge when incorporating additional liquid to a recipe is the risk of ruining the texture by diluting the dressing. You can shake almost as much extra paprika or cayenne pepper onto your potato salad as you want without affecting its consistency, for example, but something like jalapeño brine is another story. To avoid diluting your dressing too much, stir the brine in with your mayo first to see how thin of a dressing you're ultimately willing to work with while still imparting enough jalapeño flavor for it to be worth it.

About 2 or 3 tablespoons of the brine should incorporate wonderfully with the mayo while still leaving it with enough cling to properly coat the salad's titular spuds. Mixing it mightily enough with the mayo to combine is really all you need to do aside from following your usual favorite potato salad steps. There is also one more obvious, not-so-secret ingredient that makes sense here, too: the actual pickled jalapeños. Chop up a handful of those before the jar actually runs out next time for some more substantial heat and even more texture.