Potato Salad. A humble dish, maybe. But even a seemingly simply dish like this can be something special in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing. And my love, Susan Asato, knows what she’s doing.

Susan’s Vegan Tri-color Potato Salad just won 1st place and BEST OF SHOW (!) at the 2015 Orange County Fair (CA, USA) Salad Daze Competition. She beat out all the other potato salads, plus pasta salads, fruit salads, noodle salads, and other summer staples, to be awarded Best of Show. This was, as always, head-to-head against non-vegan food (there was no “vegan” category).

This is particularly notable, because potato salads often use a lot of mayonnaise (which is made primarily from eggs). But as many vegans probably know, there are some truly excellent vegan mayos on the market. For this dish, Susan used the great “Just Mayo”, from Hampton Creek.

Now simply adding a dollop of Just Mayo to some boiled potato chunks will actually get you a pretty tasty potato salad. But what got Susan that Best of Show were added touches like a bit of Tofutti “Better Than Sour Cream”, peas for sweetness, some homemade vegan vegetable stock for depth of flavor, fresh lemon zest, and a practiced hand at herbs and seasoning. Try your hand at it – Susan’s recipe is below to start off with, but for something like this, I think she’d agree that your own personal touch is important.

Congrats to my love Susan! She does what she does for the animals, to help show that vegan food tastes just as good (or Better, or BEST, in this case) compared to non-vegan.

Thanks for reading!

-- Ryan

Recipe for Vegan Tri-Color Potato Salad