Not Sour Cream — For Extra Creamy Potato Salad, Reach For This French Addition

If you've been wanting to take your old-fashioned potato salad recipe up a notch by boosting its creaminess, crème fraîche might be the answer to your culinary prayers. Crème fraîche, or fresh cream when translated to English, is essentially cultured cream, characterized by its velvety consistency thanks to the combination of heavy cream and buttermilk. Crème fraîche can be likened to sour cream because of its flavor. As it makes your potato salad even creamier, its milder character won't overpower the other ingredients, though you'll get hints of pleasant tang. 

One difference that doesn't always make these ingredients interchangeable is that crème fraîche can hold up when exposed to heat because of its fat percentage, whereas sour cream cannot. That's why you commonly encounter crème fraîche being used for baked treats and soups, as it fares well in both savory and sweet meals. Even Bobby Flay uses it to make the perfect scrambled eggs. While you don't need to expose the cream to heat when whipping up your crème fraîche potato salad, if you have extra, you know where to use it.

You'll be able to find ready-made crème fraîche at the grocery store — an 8-ounce tub can cost you around $8 – but make sure to read the label or you might accidentally add a touch of vanilla. If you have time to make it at home, you can save a few more bucks. Just mix a cup of cold heavy cream and a tablespoon of buttermilk together, then store it on the kitchen counter for at least 12 hours.  Having at least 30% fat content for the heavy cream is important to create the desired decadent texture. You can also try using pasteurized heavy cream to reach a thicker, creamier consistency in less time. 

You're free to adjust the ratio if you fancy. More buttermilk means a shorter amount of time you need to wait until your crème fraîche reaches the ideal texture, while adding less can lengthen the timeframe, but the result is better in terms of taste. Don't have buttermilk? Lemon juice and milk can make a worthwhile substitute for buttermilk. Its acidic nature will jumpstart the development of bacterial cultures, even introducing the much needed tangy flavors. But wait for 10 minutes before you add it to heavy cream and leave it be for at least 12 hours (and not more than a day) before using it for your potato salad. Mix the crème fraîche with other seasonings in a separate bowl, making sure to introduce the mixture to your new and improved side dish while it's at room temperature to avoid changing the cream's luscious texture.