Bavarian Potato Salad Recipe (2024)

A Bavarian Potato salad is a warm potato salad made with a vinegar and oil dressing. The salad compliments other German main course dishes as a side dish.

📕 How is this Bavarian potato salad different?

This potato salad is known as Kartoffelsalat or Erdäpfelsalat in German.

Kartoffel and Erdäpfel both mean potato, the second is more commonly used in the Bavarian and Austrian German language (both considered German dialects).

This potato salad is different from a conventional German potato salad because hot vegetable or meat broth is poured over the cooked potatoes.

The broth basically “seasons” the potatoes. Ultimately, the potato salad tastes flavorful, but the seasoning is not all too over-powering.

The South German potato salad is then served warm and never cooled.

Salad Bars in Southern Germany, Western Austria, and Eastern Switzerland serve up a warm potato salad and restaurants almost always have a warm potato salad on the menu. It's a staple.

Family grill-outsfrequently include a potato salad because it's easy to make, and you don't need to refrigerate the salad.

🥔 Ingredients

Here is what you will need to make this warm potato salad at home.

• potatoes — soft mealy potatoes such as Russet potatoes.
• shallots or mild onions — purple onions look great in the salad.
• oil — normally Germans use sunflower or canola oil, but you can use regular vegetable oil too.
• vinegar — apple cider vinegar, white wine vinegar or budget-friendly white distilled vinegar. You can use flavored vinegar too, such as my herb infused vinegar.
• salt and black pepper
• nutmeg — this is a main seasoning, it rounds up the other flavors. Don't skip it!
• broth — vegetable or beef broth. You can mix a Bouillon cube with water to make a broth.
• chives or parsley — freshly chopped.

Use soft potatoes. You want the potato salad to soften and get a bit mushy, to take in flavors.

The hot broth softens the onions. Onions add a little bite to the potato salad dish.

🔪 How to make it?

Here is an overview of how to make this potato salad. The details are in the recipe card further below.

Step 1

Boil potatoes tender, drain, peel, and cut them into thick slices.

Step 2

Add potato slices, cut onion, and seasoning to a salad bowl.

Combine vinegar and oil, pour over salad ingredients.

Step 3

Pour hot broth over the potato salad. Mix up.

Top with freshly chopped chives and serve up.

🍴 Serving

The German Potato Salad is often served with pork (sausages), chicken, beef, and fish meals.

You can serve the potato salad with Sauerkraut, Semmelknödel, and Sausage or with grilled pork sausages or hearty roast pork.

People in Germany and Austria serve the potato salad with a local pink meatloaf known as Leberkäse or Fleischkäse.

I also enjoy the potato salad with pan-fried, grilled, or baked fish such as with trout or carp.

Another popular street food combination is roast chicken (called Grill Hendl or Grill Huhn) with this warm potato salad. People eat this during lunch break.

You can also try to serve the potato salad with Wiener Veal Schnitzel, instead of the common parsley butter potatoes or fries option.

But my all-time favorite way to enjoy this Bavarian Potato Salad is to serve it with cooked frankfurter sausage (or Wieners) or the white sausage from Munich in Bavaria.

We frequently pass Augsburg in Germany, where we take a stop.

In that roadhouse buffet, they would serve the best Swabian (Bavarian) potato salad ever and some of the best frankfurter sausages.

The combination with a simple Semmel (aka Kaiser roll) is just divine!

🍱 Storing

Store the warm potato salad leftovers in an airtight container in your fridge for up to 3 days.

Keep it out before serving the salad, serve at room temperature for the best flavor effect.

I don't recommend freezing this salad because when it thaws it will be all watery, It's better to just prepare your Bavarian potato salad from scratch all fresh.