Warm German Potato Salad with Bacon

Warm German Potato Salad boosts flavors from salty bacon, tangy apple cider vinegar, and flavorful mustards. Served hot or cold this is a great side dish to accompany any meal!

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Warm German Potato Salad

I love a good potato salad! While a traditional American style potato salad is always good it sometimes is a great idea to switch it up with a nice bowl of Warm German Potato Salad instead.

This version of German Potato Salad has become popular in America, and while it is German this style of potato salad particularly points to a region in German, Bavaria which is in southern Germany. So if you are doing a vacation around Germany you might see this style of potato salads or many other different varieties.

German Potato Salad ditches the dressings and has no mayo, it relies on the flavors of bacon, apple cider vinegar, and mustards.

With only two components to the dish, the potatoes and the sauce this side dish is relatively easy to make.

You can serve it hot like many recipes will suggest (which also happens to be my favorite way to serve it) or it can be served cold. Either way it makes a great side dish that works great with almost any protein!

Or try some with Flammkuchen, a rustic German pizza to keep to the German theme.

Ingredients

• Baby potatoes – You can use any color baby potatoes in this recipe, yellow and red baby potatoes are both common place, you could even use a blend!
• Bacon – My biggest advice when choosing your bacon is to not get a ‘flavored’ bacon, stay away from the ones that are flavored like maple or brown sugar, these will affect the taste of the whole dish (trust me I totally did this by accident, it wasn’t great). Stick to a plain or even smoked bacon. Either thick cut or regular will work fine for this recipe.
• Garlic – Two cloves add just the right amount of garlic here, if you are using pre-minced garlic you will want about 1 teaspoon.
• Yellow Onion – A nice mellow variety of onion that when softened will become sweeter, this is perfect here because we will also be adding green onions towards the end to make sure the recipe has some zip!
• Dijon Mustard – The Dijon Mustard not only for the flavor but the creaminess it brings as well.
• Whole Grain Mustard – The Whole Grain Mustard add both flavor and texture to the dish.
• Sugar – Just a little bit to even out all the acidity in this dish between the vinegar, mustard, and onions it needs to be evened out just slightly.
• Apple Cider Vinegar – The key to German Potato Salad, this is where the punch and flavor come from. I believe that apple cider vinegar tastes best here but if you don’t have any you can use just plain white vinegar.
• Green Onions – The green onions at the end give a nice freshness, they are cooked just for a minute so they still have some zip to them but not too much.
• Parsley – At the end a little fresh parsley really freshens up the dish!

For a complete detailed list of the ingredients continue towards the bottom of the page.

Instructions for How to Make German Potato Salad

You will start by halving the potatoes and adding them to a large pot. Add cool water until all the potatoes are just covered, add a pinch of salt. Cover and heat over medium-high heat, bring to a boil. Let boil 10-15 minutes until the potatoes are tender. Drain.

While the potatoes are cooking prepare the sauce. In a bowl combine the dijon mustard, whole grain mustard, sugar, and apple cider vinegar. Whisk together to combine. 

In a skillet cook the bacon over medium heat until crispy, about 8 minutes. Set the cooked bacon aside on a paper towel lined plate to cool. 

Remove about half of the bacon grease from the skillet leaving about 2 tablespoons left to cook the yellow onion and garlic in. Add the diced onion and garlic, cook until tender about 4 to 5 minutes. 

Add the vinegar mixture and the sliced green onions to the skillet. Cook about 1 minute then turn off the heat. 

Once the potatoes are cooked and drained add them to the sauce. Crumble the bacon and add it to the potatoes along with the fresh parsley. Toss everything carefully to mix. Serve hot/warm or let cool down and transfer to the fridge to serve as a cold potato salad. 

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