Potato salad gets a pressure cooker makeover! Cook the potatoes and eggs together in the pressure cooker, then mix with the rest of the salad ingredients and a mayonnaise-Dijon dressing. Easy-peasy.
Elise’s Dad makes an awesome potato salad. The salad is studded with lots of crunchy chopped vegetables, and the simple dressing (just mayo, mustard, and pepper) is perfect. As far as the ingredients go, there isn’t a whole lot to improve upon!
The classic stove-top method works just fine, of course, but I couldn’t wait to convert this classic recipe to be made in the pressure cooker!
Using an electric pressure cooker or Instant Pot to steam the potatoes and eggs all at once streamlines this recipe, conserves water, and speeds things up a little bit.
- New to the Instant Pot? Check out our post How To Use an Instant Pot: A First-Timer’s Guide.
You don’t have to wait for a big pot of water to boil, and you can prep the rest of the ingredients while the potatoes and eggs cook.
In order to get the eggs perfectly hard boiled and the potatoes fork tender, the potatoes need to be quartered rather than cut into 1-inch pieces before cooking. Place them in a steamer basket in your pressure cooker with the eggs on top, then cook for just five minutes under pressure.
Chop up the eggs and potatoes, mix them with the dressing, crunchy vegetables, and pickles, and the salad is ready. It’s great served warm, or chilled and served the next day.
Pressure Cooker Potato Salad Recipe
- Prep time: 20 minutes
- Cook time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 6 to 8
Ingredients
- 3 or 4 medium Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes (2 to 2 ½ pounds), peeled and quartered if Russets, halved if Yukon Gold
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup pickle juice from a jar of Kosher dill pickles (plus more to taste)
- 3 tablespoons finely chopped dill pickles
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley
- 1/2 cup chopped red onion
- 2 stalks celery, chopped
- 1 or 2 chopped scallions, including the greens
- 1 medium carrot, peeled and finely chopped
- 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- Salt to taste
Special equipment:
- 6-quart Instant Pot or other pressure cooker
Method
1 Cook the potatoes and eggs in the pressure cooker: Pour a cup of water into a pressure cooker and place a steamer basket inside. Add the quartered potatoes and place the eggs on top.
Secure the lid on the pressure cooker. Make sure that the pressure regulator is set to the “Sealing” position. If you are using an Instant Pot, select the “Steam” program, then adjust the time to 5 minutes. If your pressure does not have a “Steam” program, set it manually to “High Pressure” for 5 minutes.
The pressure cooker will take 10 to 15 minutes to come up to full pressure. Cook time begins once it has reached full pressure.
2 Release the pressure after cooking: Right when the timer goes off, perform a quick pressure release by moving the pressure release knob from “Sealing” to “Venting.” It will take a minute or two for the pressure to release completely.
3 Cool the potatoes and eggs, then chop. Wearing a pair of heat-proof mitts, remove the steamer basket from the pressure cooker. Put the eggs in a bowl of cold water, and leave the potatoes to cool in the basket for 10 minutes.
Once cool, cube the potatoes. Peel the eggs and chop them coarsely. Keep the potatoes and eggs separate.
4 Combine the potatoes and eggs with the other salad ingredients: Put the potatoes into a large mixing bowl. Gently fold in the juice from the Kosher dill pickles. Add the finely chopped pickles followed by the parsley, onions, celery, scallions, chopped hard-boiled eggs, carrots, and red bell pepper.
5 Mix in the dressing: In a separate small bowl, mix the mayonnaise with mustard and pepper. Gently fold the dressing with the potato mixture. Taste and add additional salt as needed.
6 Serve the potato salad warm or chilled. The potato salad will keep for up to 3 days in the refrigerator.
