Potato salad with miso yoghurt dressing

For the past few years, we have been having fortnightly veggie boxes delivered from a local company. We get it fortnightly, not weekly, as we also shop for our veggies at some of the local markets, and have just started enjoying vegetables from our own garden which we planted a few months back. Which is super exciting – it’s so rewarding to eat food that you have grown (and then cooked) yourself, not to mention the fact that it tastes better (biased much!? ;)

One item from our veggie box that we often don’t get through is the bag of potatoes. B often bakes a few which he’ll eat with a (meat) pie, but that’s usually the only way they get eaten. So coming into summer, I thought it would be nice to make a potato salad, with a little difference. I wanted something with a bit more depth of flavour than a normal potato salad which can sometimes be swamped by a creamy dressing and lacking in flavour. I’m not completely adverse to a creamy potato salad, as long as the flavour is still appetising. 

Potato salad in Australia is often served with chopped up ham or bacon which I obviously don’t put in mine, but I wanted something with a bit of depth rather than just using salt to flavour the salad, so I’ve used miso and smoked paprika in the dressing for a smokey saltiness, along with the creamy saltiness of feta. which garnishes the salad. The yoghurt is a tart contrast that provides a lovely light, and slightly tart base for the dressing. To keep the salad fresh and not too heavy, I’ve also added radishes, peas, celery and spring onion. You could use anything here though – blanched broccoli would also be lovely, as would broad beans or snap peas. And lastly to balance out the flavours, a thinly sliced pickle and honey in the dressing add a lovely hint of sweetness.

This salad can be enjoyed in hot or cold weather – we’ve had a pretty rough start to the summer so on one particularly cold and dreary night I made up the dressing and stirred it through some roasted (and slightly cooled, though still warm) potatoes and it worked beautifully. It was a much smaller serve, and because of the yoghurt and fresh ingredients I don’t think it would work to reheat, so if you do choose to make it with roasted potatoes, try to only make as much as you can eat in the one meal. 

If using boiled potatoes and serving cold however, you can easily make a bigger serve and it will last a few days in the fridge.

To make a meal of this salad, you can serve it with a soft (or hard) boiled eggs, or stir through some chickpeas.