With Carolina Sauce
Happy Memorial Day! Let the summer begin! I hope this summer brings many things to celebrate… mostly side dishes. I don’t know about you, but I go straight for the sides when hitting the buffet line at a family barbecue. A hamburger is a hamburger is a hamburger…the sides are where the fun is! And my favorite part about the sides (besides eating them) is making them and then the…..”OMG I need the recipe for this!”
That question is what myself and many home cooks revel in. I could have gotten pulled over, ran over a skunk and lost my house keys, but if someone compliments by way of asking for a recipe…all is well in the world. I wish that feeling for everyone once in their life.
With all of that said…I went out on a limb…I created something new. I am usually the pasta salad queen, but I threw a curve ball today and for a friends BBQ and created this new potato salad favorite. It has a lot of the usual potato salad costars but a couple new ones as well. The superstar in this is the Carolina Mustard BBQ sauce that has been starring at me in my fridge door since I bought it a couple months ago on sale. One of those items you buy , use and love but it just doesn’t fit into your normal weekly regime.
It’s got a sweet and tangy flavor, not as mustardy as you would think. I detest yellow mustard, but can’t seem to find the real “mustard” flavor in this. It’s just tangy. And I LOVE IT!
So I decided that a BBQ based potato salad with actual BBQ meat in it should have the usual mustard replaced with Mustard BBQ sauce and voila! Delicious!
HERE IS WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
About 8 medium/average sized russet potatoes (leftover from the night before work great)
1 cup Mayonase
1 cup Sour Cream
1/4 cup Carolina Mustard BBQ Sauce ( I used the Heinz variety)
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
2 stalks of finely diced celery with leaves
1 tsp Celery Salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 cup shredded BBQ chicken or Pork ( whatever you have on hand- Or find my recipe here)
2 tbsp Fresh chives or green onions
STEP 1: Dice your potatoes into 1″ or slightly smaller bite sized pieces. And toss together with your red onions and celery.
STEP 2: Sprinkle with celery salt and black pepper. This step in important. I think that seasoning the potatoes before you dress them separates the bad from the good potato salads. Potatos have no flavor…give it to them!
STEP 3: Pulverize your shredded meat. Mine was left over chicken from earlier in the week and for sandwiches I like it kind of chunky. But for this it it needs to be skinny little strands of BBQ goodness. I accomplish this by putting it my mixer and beating it for about a minute and that’s all it takes. You can do this with a fork in a bowl if you don’t want to bust out the heavy machinery.
STEP 4: Add meat to potato mixture.
STEP 5: Mix together the “wet” ingredients. Sour Cream, Mayo. BBQ sauce and Chives in a separate bowl. This is a great step for your 4 year old to help with.
STEP 6: Pour dressing onto potato mixture and gently… I said GENTLY…. combine. We are not making mashed potatoes, don’t get carried away.
And just like that you have Creamy, Tangy, Saucy, Salty….all the taste adjectives. This hits just about everything on the “I need to eat all of this right now…get in my mouth” check list.
This is the greatest mashup I’ve come up with in a while. I’ts like the crazy uncle to potato salad and a fun cousin to chicken salad. It just hits all the marks and I can’t wait to share it with a line of hungry friends and family at our next Barbecue. Stay safe this Memorial Day and happy eating!
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