Dilled Potato Salad with Tuna and Peas

What’s Memorial Day without potato salad? Someone asked me that yesterday but I can’t figure out why we serve it at every American cookout. Its over-boiled russet potatoes create a gloppy glue with tasteless Yellow No. 5 mustard and fat, dulling out instead of complementing the strong flavors of barbeque. I’ve even had it with sugar – gross. But maybe potato salad had a past life that was healthier and tastier. Maybe we’ve gotten too lazy to forage the produce aisle and make herbacious and fresh side dish but have kept it on the picnic table to appease history. This recipe returns to what I believe American potato salad could have been – and probably a little better.

As with most recipes, it came to me through a stream of connections while walking through the grocery store. Dill > potatoes > tuna > peas > dill > Greek yogurt. I swapped the yogurt in for mayo to amp up the protein and turn down the cholesterol. Tuna and peas balance out the starch and make it snackable as a stand-alone dish. Dill is strong enough to break the starch down. And voila – a non-fat, colurful dish to turn heads at your next picnic.

Give it a try. Swap out some ingredients to customize it to your palate. But don’t backtrack on freshness or nutrition.

Flavor almost always comes with color.

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Dilled Potato Salad with Tuna and Peas

1lb. Red potatoes
1 cup Frozen Peas
1/2 cup 0% Fat Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp. Seasoned rice wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
1 small Red onion
1 can Chunk white tuna
1/3 cup Fresh dill
Salt
Pepper

Cut potatoes into 1/2″ cubes and boil in salted water. Use a fork to check after 10 minutes and check at regular intervals until just tender enough for the fork to ease through. Immediately drain in a colander and run under cold water to stop the cooking process. Chill with ice cubes or in the refrigerator until cool. [Start this before you make other parts of your meal so you have time to let it cool.]

Prepare peas according to package and set aside to cool.

Whisk olive oil into Greek yogurt, Dijon mustard, and seasoned rice wine vinegar in a small bowl.

Finely chop red onion, tuna and dill and add to a large bowl. Toss in potatoes and 3/4 of the sauce and stir to coat evenly. Add more sauce until you have the desired wetness. [I like to make extra sauce to leave aside for leftovers because potato salad will inevitably dry out.] Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Pretty, pretty picnics in Central Park.