New York Vs Southern-Style Potato Salad: What's The Actual Difference?

You only have to cross certain regional lines to find different versions of potato salad. New York-style potato salad, for example, is a loose concept, but tends to have fewer ingredients than Southern-style iterations. It's often only garnished with parsley or grated carrot, and sometimes you see it made with nothing but potatoes in a creamy dressing. A big part of a New York deli potato salad is the flavor of the potatoes — many delis soak them in a seasoned vinegar brine before they dress them in mayonnaise. Some recipes actually recommend leaving them in this brine overnight, or for up to two days, so the potatoes can really take on the sharp flavors.

Southern potato salad is a more loaded dish. It often calls for hard-boiled eggs and a more assertively tangy dressing full of yellow mustard and sweet pickle relish. But, truthfully, neither label describes a fixed recipe. New York potato salad varies even among the best delis while Southern cooks have their own fiercely held versions of this classic side dish. Ultimately, the best recipe for potato salad may simply be the one you grew up eating.

One area you may notice a difference in between the two styles is their texture. A New York deli potato salad, generally speaking, keeps the potatoes more thinly sliced so the brine can soak in and the dressing can coat each piece. Conversely, Southern-style potato salad tends to be much stockier and softer. A common Southern technique for potato salad involves cooking the titular tubers until they're tender and stirring them into the dressing when they're still warm so they soak up the flavors and break down a little more. The texture ends up being closer to mashed potatoes. Of course, this is not a universal Southern rule, but it explains why Southern potato salad has a much softer, more cohesive mouthfeel.

The potatoes also play a role in affecting the final texture. Some New York deli recipes specifically use Yukon Gold potatoes, which are waxier and keep their shape even after cooking. Meanwhile, the best spuds for making a classic potato salad Southern-style are russet potatoes since they're starchier, so they're more likely to break down a little in the dressing. In Southern potato salad, even the mayonnaise is part of the equation. Duke's, which is associated with Southern cooking in general, works well as a rich potato salad dressing thanks to its tangier, eggier flavor.