This fresh potato salad recipe is for my fellow last-minute potluck planners. When you’re scrambling to make yourself look decent, trying to scrounge together a side worth sharing, and letting the dog out all at the same time? Potato salad to the rescue!

I honestly never met a potato salad I loved until I made this one. It’s a riff on classic French potato salads, which contain no mayo and lots of herbs. I opted for lemon juice instead of vinegar for a super fresh-tasting salad.

After some trial and error, I discovered that the key to making the best mayo-free potato salad is blending the dressing in the food processor with some starchy reserved potato cooking water. You end up with a super creamy, herby emulsification that infuses the potatoes with fresh flavor.

Another trick, which comes from the experts at America’s Test Kitchen, is to slice your potatoes before boiling, rather than afterward. That way, the potatoes don’t break down into mush when you’re tossing the salad later. Plus, your potatoes cook faster that way (five minutes!). This potato salad comes together in a flash.

Hope you all have a marvelous Fourth of July. If you need any more party recipes, click on over to my barbecue salads and sides roundup!

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Yessss. Let’s make homemade crispy potato wedges. These potato wedges are impossibly crispy and crackly on the outside, with tender, pillowy potato insides. They’re the perfect homemade solution any time the French fry craving strikes.

These wedges are generously seasoned with pepper, garlic powder and onion powder before baking, which makes them mysteriously and utterly irresistible.

Since these potato wedges are baked in heart-healthy olive oil, rather than deep-fried in canola oil, they are far more redeeming than your average French fries. They’re as healthy as fries can be, basically.

Here’s the secret to making ultra crispy potato wedges: Soak your raw potato wedges in hot water for 10 minutes before baking. This step releases some of the starch in the potatoes and lets them absorb moisture, which leads to crisp outsides and moist interiors.

In fact, with this method, the outsides almost seem to have a double layer of crispness. It’s magical. Granted, you could skip the soaking step if you’re in a hurry, but your potato wedges will be about 80 percent as awesome. (I’ve tried.) We owe a thank you to the geniuses at America’s Test Kitchen for this little trick.

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If you’re like me, you might think of mashed potatoes as holiday-only food. And if you’re like me, you might often wish for more holidays that call for mashed potatoes.

Today, I’m happy to introduce you to one more excuse to eat mashed potatoes. Meet colcannon! Colcannon is Irish mashed potatoes with kale or cabbage.

So, in case you need more justification to pull out your potato masher—these mashed potatoes have greens in them.

Did you know that St. Patrick’s Day is coming right up? Let’s make some colcannon!

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Would you look at those crisp and golden potatoes? Tell me you don’t want to eat those puppies straight off the pan. Yeah, I know you do. I do, too.  These crispy smashed potatoes are best when they’re hot and fresh, so right off the pan is actually the best serving method.

Smashed potatoes are fun for brunch or dinner. They’re also perfect any time you get a hankering for some crispy potatoes, but want something a little more redeeming than French fries. They go great with hearty salads, too, when salad-for-dinner feels too austere.

These smashed potatoes are a fun way to use up the bag of potatoes in your pantry. They’re gluten free and vegan, too, for all to enjoy.

Smashed potatoes aren’t the quickest potato option around (you’ll boil them until tender, then smash and bake), but they are not difficult to make. Will you try them this weekend?

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You know how most vegetable soups are pretty tired and “blah”? Not this one! This hearty homemade vegetable soup is full of fresh, wholesome flavors.

I’m excited to share this vegetable soup recipe with you. It’s honestly the best I’ve ever had, and I hope you’ll agree. You just might have all the ingredients you’ll need to make this easy soup on hand already.

I can think of so many reasons to make this soup. Warm up with a big bowl of veggie soup on a cold day. Make it for someone who’s under the weather. My husband has a cold and it’s snowing outside as I type, so this soup is just what we need right now.

Prepare a batch and you’ll have a healthy side dish ready to go for the rest of the week. This soup is a great way to lighten up heavier meals, especially as we get into the holidays. Did I mention that it’s vegetarian, vegan and gluten free for all to enjoy?

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It’s about time you met this broccoli cheddar soup recipe. It’s rich and indulgent, but not so much that it weighs me down.

My husband declared it the best he’s ever had, and started throwing out one-liners in between spoonfuls:

• “It’s the velvet of the soup world.”
• “All the sin without any of the guilt.”
• “This may be the universe’s best delivery system for broccoli.”
• “It’s like a warm blanket after being outside on a long winter day.”

I tried to make a great broccoli soup six months ago. I gave up after several failed attempts, and recently tried again after discovering Sarah Jampel’s method in Bon Appétit. Thank you for showing me the way, Sarah.

I have high standards for broccoli cheese soup. I wanted soup that met the following qualifications:

• Sufficiently green and full of fresh flavor
• Cheesy!
• Luxuriously smooth but with some texture from tender florets
• Preferably free of flour and heavy cream

I wanted all that, and I didn’t want to feel like I was eating a bowl of queso (don’t get me wrong, sometimes that’s exactly what I want to eat). This recipe checks all the boxes!

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Make this Southwestern corn chowder for a cozy dinner at home! This vegetarian corn chowder recipe is fresh, wholesome and delicious. It’s perfect for cool late summer or fall evenings when fresh corn is at its peak. Or, you can make it any time with frozen corn.

I wanted the corn flavor to shine and balanced its sweetness with some Southwestern spice. You’ll find bell pepper, poblano and chili powder in this atypical chowder. I promise you will not miss the bacon.

I purposefully avoided using the heavy cream that you’ll find in most chowder recipes. Heavy cream has a tendency to dull flavors and also makes me feel weighed down. Instead, I blended a bit of butter into the soup (one of my favorite soup tricks) and stirred in some crème fraîche or sour cream at the end. These dairy ingredients offer some creaminess, of course, plus some tanginess that you won’t get from plain cream.

You can easily make this soup dairy free or vegan, if desired. You’ll love the end results either way!

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Well hello, golden potatoes. You are exactly what I crave with dinner after a long day. More redeeming than French fries, yet just as nice.

I’ll admit that it took me quite a few tries to perfect this roasted potatoes recipe. So, I have a few tricks to share today. This method yields substantial hunks of potatoes that are beautifully golden on the outside and pillowy-tender on the inside.

These roasted potatoes are lovely on weeknights and perfect for the holidays, especially when you add the optional rosemary. Sometimes, I load them up with some sour cream, chives, dill, flaky salt and pepper for a variation we could call ranch potatoes. They’re also great with a drizzle of Easy Green Goddess Dressing.

Bottom line, you can’t go wrong with these roasted potatoes. Serve them up!

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Meet the baked potato of my dreams! These baked potatoes are fluffy on the inside and crisp on the outside. They’re exactly the kind of baked potato I’ve been craving. If you share my definition of what a baked potato should be, you could call these potatoes perfect.

I baked potatoes every which way to arrive at this recipe. I tried various baking temperatures, different crisping methods, and even analyzed how and when to slice open those beautiful baked spuds.

If you’re accustomed to run-of-the-mill baked potatoes, this might sound like a silly amount of effort. But if you have savored the glorious contrast between crispy potato skin and fluffy potato interior, you know there must be a trick to it.

The good news is that baking the perfect potato isn’t complicated when you follow this method. There’s not much better than a piping hot baked potato on a chilly day, so preheat that oven already!

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If there were ever a creamy potato dish worth making, it is this one. It’s similar to scalloped potatoes, but better, in my opinion. It comes together simply and beautifully, with no roux required.

This potatoes au gratin recipe is actually known as gratin dauphinois in France. Gratin dauphinois hails from the Dauphiné region in southeastern France, which is nestled next to Italy.

Gratin dauphinois features thinly sliced rounds of potatoes cooked in cream, sometimes with cheese but often without. This potato gratin includes a generous amount of Gruyère cheese, and I wouldn’t want it any other way! The recipe is lightly seasoned with garlic, pepper and nutmeg, and the end result is just… magic.

If you would love a moment of happy silence at your bustling holiday meal, serve this recipe. I have literally watched people go quiet upon their first bite. That’s when I know a recipe is just right!

You can also can prepare this recipe in advance, which is a big plus for a full-course meal. This dish would be welcome at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, or any special occasion in between.

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