Give Potato Salad A Zesty Flavor Boost With A Few Squirts Of This

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Potato salads come in a wide variety of styles. While old-fashioned American potato salad is usually heavy on the mayo or Miracle Whip, many people toss the warm potatoes in vinegar before adding other ingredients. French and Spanish styles, meanwhile, lean into vinaigrette as the primary dressing. One way to brighten either version even more is by replacing basic oil and vinegar with a zesty Italian dressing.

The so-called Italian dressing that most of us know — oil and vinegar, a thickener, and the added kick of herbs, peppers, and spices — actually got its start in America. The Wish-Bone restaurant in Kansas City adapted what was allegedly the owner's Sicilian mother's recipe into a bottled product in 1952 called Wish-Bone Italian Dressing. A Zesty Robusto version came later. Also in the 1950s, Ken's Steak House in Framingham, Massachusetts, bottled its Italian Dressing and Marinade (reputed to be another family recipe). Today, there are plenty of brands of Italian or zesty Italian dressing. Some have just a hint of spice, while others are zippier, with bold spice and bell pepper flavors.

What makes the potato salad trick work is two-fold. In mayo-based salads, tossing the still-hot potatoes in vinegar (or oil and vinegar) enhances the flavor of the potatoes so they don't get lost in the mayonnaise. In a warm European-style salad, or an herbed potato salad, the oil and vinegar are a little tame on their own as the anchor dressing. Zesty Italian is more full-bodied than a traditional vinaigrette, but not as thick as mayonnaise. The additional herbs, spices, and flavorful veggies add a tart complexity and a hint of heat to a potentially one-note salad.

When it comes to zesty Italian dressing, some reviewers find that store-bought versions are too viscous, or the flavors too unbalanced or muddled, to replace a basic vinaigrette in a traditional salad. When pre-treating potatoes for a mayo-based salad, the usual approach is to toss them with a tablespoon or two of vinegar while still warm, so using zesty Italian creates a distinctly different flavor profile. Since some people swear by it, and there are plenty of recipes online incorporating Italian dressing, your best bet is to try two or three brands to see what works for you.

The more common approach involves using Italian dressing as the primary binder with the potatoes and other ingredients, or mixed into a traditional mayonnaise dressing. Here, you use ½ cup or so of zesty Italian, so it's important you actually like the stuff, determining if what you're responding to is the vinegar, red bell pepper, or specific herbs. Some brands, such as Brick House Italian Garden Zesty Italian, feature a very different ingredient list (think honey, mustard, and avocado oil), so reading said list is important to ensure a delicious potato salad.

Once you find a zesty Italian dressing you like, the tart boost of red bell peppers, herbs, and vinegar encourages other ingredients you might not normally think of adding to potato salads. Tangy vinegar brings out more flavor in hard-boiled eggs (which often appear in potato salad), but you can also add radishes, sour pickles, or sliced green olives. You can also add a savory, umami-rich protein twist with smoked salmon, shrimp, or soppressata salami.