A staple in cuisines all over the globe, the potato is a versatile ingredient that stars in some of our favorite summer dishes. From creamy potato salad to crispy French fries and samosas, we’ve rounded up our best summer potato recipes.
No summer picnic is complete without potato salad. Our lemon mayonnaise smashed potato salad is super creamy, with a kick from lemon juice and mustard powder. Or try our German potato salad with bacon, onion, and parsley. For a Nordic twist look to potatissallad, a Swedish summer favorite featuring sautéed kohlrabi, fresh dill, and boiled potatoes.
Potatoes were practically made for frying. It doesn’t get much more classic that French fries and potato chips. The trick to great fries is to fry them twice—the first frying gives them a tender, fluffy interior, while the second crisps them up. Our potato chip recipe is flavored with a mix of barbecue spices like cayenne, cumin, and garlic.
Fried potatoes feature heavily in cuisine from parts of India. Bhajiya is a street food made of of pieces of potato battered in chickpea flour and fried. And who could forget samosa? These fried pastries filled with potato and peas are a hearty, delicious snack.
If you don’t want to deep-fry, try roasting your potatoes. Roasted potatoes are a wonderful side plain, but to brighten them up try dressing them with a lemon-olive oil emulsion.
Find all these dishes and more in our collection of our best summer potato recipes.
In Spain, the stopgap to late-night dinners is bar snacks like patatas bravas, crisp potatoes blanketed in mayonnaise and a thick spicy tomato sauce. Get the recipe for Patatas Bravas »
Dill-and-new-potato salad is an iconic summer food in Sweden. In this version, sautéed kohlrabi, fresh dill, and boiled potatoes are warmed in melted butter to make a simple side dish that’s perfect for picnics and backyard barbecues.
These squares of crispy potato flatbread are similar to potato farls, the fried potato bread that’s a traditional part of the Northern Irish breakfast known as an Ulster Fry. Get the recipe for Irish Potato Bread »
In this classic Genoese dish, fettuccine pasta is combined with string beans, baby red potatoes, and tossed with basil pesto. Get the recipe for Trenette al Pesto »
For this Mumbai street-food snack w, mashed potatoes are seasoned with cumin, mustard seeds, curry leaves, ginger, and chile; balls of the aromatic mash are then coated in a turmeric-accented chickpea-flour batter and deep-fried until crisp and golden. Get the recipe for Indian Mashed Potato Fritters (Aloo Bonda) »
For this Mumbai street-food snack, chunks of potato are dredged in a light chickpea-and-rice-flour batter that is spiced with turmeric and chile powder.
Kroppkakor, hearty mashed potato dumplings stuffed with an allspice-laden filling of bacon and onion, are a specialty of Oland, an island off the southern coast of Sweden.
Boiling potatoes whole and unpeeled means they don’t absorb too much water as they cook. Mixing them with an egg yolk and olive oil yields a rich dressing without the heavy creaminess of mayonnaise. Get the recipe for Smashed Potato Salad »
Seniard Creek cook Clarence Bratton’s method for roasted potatoes, which calls for cooking them at a high temperature, turns them golden brown on the outside and creamy within.
Roasting potatoes for potato salad, rather than boiling them, lends a caramelized sweetness that’s offset by a tangy dressing of sour cream, mustard, and shallots.
This creamy, rich soup is a favorite in Mexico City. In summer it’s usually chilled like a vichyssoise, but it’s also served hot, especially in the cooler months.
These salsa-dunked and griddled sandwiches, an iconic Mexico City street food, are named for the pambazos—soft, oval rolls—they’re typically made with. Telera and kaiser rolls make fine substitutes.
Barbecue chips’ smoky, tangy flavors are easy to create at home with a simple mixture that combines classic barbecue sauce spices such as chile powder, garlic powder, and onion powder, with the added kick of cayenne pepper.
