Loaded Baked Potato Salad is cheesy, creamy and ready in just minutes. It makes the perfect side dish to your holiday meal or potluck!
The easy recipe is perfect for large gatherings because it doesn’t take up a burner on your stovetop or a spot in the oven during the critical last few minutes before serving and it tastes…amazing. Plus now you don’t have to bake a huge bowl of potatoes and have five little bowls of toppings for people to add in at the party.
Okay, okay, so you may have noticed or soon be noticing I didn’t add bacon to this. Yes, if I made it for just a couple of people I am all about the bacon, but this dish was made for a lovely vegetarian friend so I nixed the bacon.
Want to add the bacon back in? I do about a half a pound, cooked and crumbled. Then instead of a half a cup of mayonnaise you swap out a bit of it forbacon fat. The result is a super bacony, cheesy, delicious baked potato salad!
Speaking of mayonnaise, I have very strong feelings about using a specific one I love so much I actually have it shipped to me since it isn’t available to us West Coasters locally. Dukes! You lucky people who get to buy it in person, it is the best mayo ever, so yeah, if you can get it locally or are willing to give a new mayo a shot, I think you’ll love it.
If you want to swap the sour cream out, you can also use a greek yogurt instead. It will be a bit tangier than the sour cream, but hey now you can add more cheese with all the calories you saved? 😉
Tools used in the making of this Loaded Baked Potato Salad:
Large Pot with Steamer Insert: Makes life so much easier to lift the potatoes out at once and let them cool without risking a burn trying to strain them into a colander.
Kosher Salt: In 99% of the recipes on this site, you’ll find Kosher salt used. It’s super inexpensive but the flavor is miles better than table salt and less overwhelmingly salty.
Duke’s Mayo: Best mayonnaise ever, and really does add so much to the potato salad. It is more readily available in the middle and east coast of the country, but hey Amazon Prime folks!
Loaded Baked Potato Salad
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt , divided
- 2 pounds red potatoes , peeled and cut into 1" chunks
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1 cup sharp cheddar cheese , grated
- 1/2 cup scallions , sliced
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- Crumbled bacon , optional
- Parsley for garnish , optional
Instructions
- In a large pot add water, 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt and potatoes.
Bring to a boil and cook for 10-12 minutes or until a fork pierces the pieces easily.
- Drain, then let the potatoes cool.
In a mixing bowl add the remaining salt, mayonnaise, sour cream and black pepper.
- Toss the potatoes with 1/2 of the bacon, 1/2 of the cheese, and 1/2 of the green onions, reserving the other half for garnish.
- Pour the dressing over the potatoes and stir to combine.
- Cover and refrigerate overnight for best results, or for several hours before serving.
- Garnish the potato salad with remaining bacon, cheese, and green onions immediately before serving. Enjoy!
You keep saying boil the potatoes but you bake them? The name of the recipe is
Baked Potato Salad.
The name refers to everything you usually put on a baked potato. This recipe requires you to boil the potatoes. Sorry if that was confusing.
I love it, everyone loves it. This has been my go to Potato salad recipe since at least 2016 when I came across this recipe. When I was a novice cook this re iOS was easy for to execute with rave reviews.
Question. Has you tried this with cauliflower? My husband and I want to try with roasted cauliflower. Thoughts?
Oooh, I haven’t. I’ll have to add that to my research list.
How much bacon do you need? Directions say to add half….half of what? I hate to rate a recipe until I have tried it, but gave it a 4 bcuz it sounds good, not a 5 bcuz 1) you didn’t actually bake the potatoes and 2) the ingredients list is confusing. I do plan to try this!
Sorry for the confusion. The crumbled bacon is optional. You can add as much or as little as you’d like to the recipe. I cooked up a pound and used half in the salad and then used the other half to garnish before serving. Hope this helps.
Wonderful….can’t say enough good things about it!
Where can I search for recipes? I’m looking for five pudding.
Rice pudding.
There is a search box in the upper right hand corner of the site though I don’t have a 5 pudding recipe.
Here’s a link to my chocolate pudding one: https://dev.dinnerthendessert.com/chocolate-pudding/
Hope this helps!
Did you bake the potatoes, steam them, or boil them?
I boiled them in step 1 on the recipe card. 🙂
So after I add everything to a bowl and mix together I’m supposed to take half the cheese back out???
Thanks for catching that glitch. I’ve edited to read correctly now.
It was very salty! I love everything with salt but this was a bit overpowering. It may have been the mayonnaise I used but I had to add miracle whip to tone down the salt. Other than that it was a pretty good recipe:)
I dream of this potato salad! Literally…
Love it!!
This recipe is amazing. I added jalapenos to it and used bacon bits and it was hit with my hubby’s co workers!
Sounds delicious!
It is a very good recipe. I do the same basic recipe but use bleu cheese instead. Equally delicious. And…”Loaded” does describe this recipe.
That does sound delicious!
I also added in some fresh chopped dill. It was delicious!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for coming back to let me know!
Best Potato Salad ever! Love this!
This sounds really yummy. I just have one question. It says that you boil the potatoes till a fork pierces them easily (stage 2) and then again in stage 5 they are boiled again till they are fork tender. Isn’t that the same thing?
Sorry this comment took so long to get to, it ended up in my spam filter somehow! I don’t even know how that slipped past me! Boiling once is plenty, I adjusted the recipe card. Thank you so much for letting me know!
This would be great for the holidays! We serve a lot of salads just because they’re so easy and can be made in advance.
Oh my goodness! This potato salad is amaaazing!! I can’t wait to try it!! 🙂
This salad look so good! Creamy potato salads are my jam!
What a fabulous potato salad…I love this idea for a party.
Just curious where the name “LOADED BAKED POTATO SALAD” came from?? I was looking for baked potatoes with insides taken out and mixed like potato salad then put back in the skins for little bowls. This would have made great sense to me. But the recipe basically steamed the potatoes, drained them, added the other ingredients and chilled before serving. This is nothing new on making potato salad.. and certainly not ‘Baked”!!! Just mho.
smh.. to comment it made me use the comment AND reply section.. So hope you can figure it out.. was not really worthy of two comments. Plus I used the leave a comment under the title of Loaded Baked Potato Salad bui it seems to be under “Slow Cooker Hawaiian Pineapple Chicken”??? WTH??? This makes me look computer ‘stupid’ and actually I’m not … I have my own website and do know how to send messages…
Hey Judy, sorry this comment took so long to get to, it ended up in my spam filter somehow! I mentioned it as loaded because most loaded baked potatoes have the cheese and sour cream added in (and bacon). I think since it is similar in flavor it makes sense for the title, but I am sorry if you felt misled. Also, sorry the site is confusing where the comments are going but it definitely showed up under the baked potato salad recipe.
Judge Judy – It would help if you actually knew the name of what you were looking for. They are called twice baked potatoes. How can you come on someone’s site and give them one star for a recipe you didn’t even want to begin with. Get a grip! You sound little a whinny brat that didn’t get their way. It is a great recipe and everyone who has tried it when I’ve made it has loved it!
Can you bring this to me right now?!
Am I boiling the potatoes twice?
Sorry this comment took so long to get to, it ended up in my spam filter somehow! I don’t even know how that slipped past me! Boiling once is plenty, I adjusted the recipe card. Thank you so much for letting me know!
That’s so true, I always think of potato salad as a summer dish, but it’s a great idea for a holiday dish. I’m always looking for side dishes that I can make in advance!