Ina Garten's Secret For Creamy And Delicious Potato Salad

Potato salad is a dish that inherently welcomes iterations and variations to better suit one's palette. Ina Garten, chef and TV personality, is the queen of making minor tweaks that have a major effect. Her recipe for potato salad is as dreamy as it is creamy, and the secret is — quite literally — in the sauce. In her recipe for potato salad, shared on an episode of Food Network's "Barefoot Contessa," Garten adds a quarter of a cup of buttermilk to a mayonnaise-based dressing. "Adding some kind of liquid to mayonaisse takes away that sort of gloppy flavor and it makes it more like a sauce," she explained.

She also suggests white wine or chicken stock as substitutes for buttermilk. Any of the three liquids would complement the starchy taste and pillowy texture of potatoes. Buttermilk, or any one of her proposed substitutes, acts as an emulsifier, easing the incorporation of other ingredients into the fatty and oily mayonnaise. A liquid thins out the mayonnaise, forming a silky and creamy sauce to envelop the potatoes.

Keeping in character, of course the Barefoot Contessa has variations on variations. In another potato salad recipe of hers, shared on her official website, she has a different special ingredient that maximizes creaminess — the starchy water from boiling potatoes. She dresses her potatoes in vinegar and about one-third of a cup of the starchy water after draining, letting them sit before the rest of the dressing is incorporated. In this case, the starchy water also acts as an emulsifier, creating a light and creamy sauce to balance out the dense potatoes.

For those looking for a textural variety in a potato salad, chop the celery or onion a bit more roughly. The large, crunchy chunks will cut through the creaminess and add some freshness into the taste. Add bits of bacon to recall a German potato salad while adding meaty, savory notes to the overall flavor profile. If you're looking for a hefty scoop, folding in hard boiled eggs will also result in a thicker texture.