Warm Mustard Potato Salad with Green Beans and Dill
Hot gold potatoes and green beans tossed straight from the pot with a sharp mustard and cider vinaigrette, white beans, wilted kale, sliced shallot, and a lot of dill.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
This is my grandmother-in-law's potato salad rearranged into a dinner, and the one rule that came down from her is that the dressing meets the potatoes while they are still steaming. Cold potatoes are sealed and the vinaigrette slides off them into the bottom of the bowl. Hot ones are open and thirsty, and they take the mustard and vinegar right into the cut faces, so the seasoning ends up inside the potato rather than on it. Everything else here follows from that one moment, which is why the dressing gets whisked before the pot even goes on the stove.
It eats warm rather than hot, which is a temperature we do not use often enough. The potatoes are soft and a little broken at the edges, the green beans still squeak against your teeth, and the white beans go creamy where they catch some of the dressing. Shallot sliced paper thin turns mild and slightly pink in the vinegar within a couple of minutes. The dill is the loudest thing in the bowl and it should be. Half a cup sounds absurd and tastes exactly right against all that starch and acid.
I make this on warm evenings when I want dinner that is substantial but not heavy, and again in the fall when the last of the green beans come in. It is one pot, everything cooked in the same water in stages, and it is finished within about ten minutes of the potatoes being drained. It also travels to a picnic better than almost anything else I cook, since it is meant to be eaten at room temperature and there is nothing in it that curdles or turns in the sun.
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 lb small Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and halved, or quartered if larger than a golf ball
- 9 oz green beans, stem ends snapped off and cut in half
- 1 can (15 oz) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed well, about 1 1/4 cups
- 5 oz lacinato kale, stems stripped out and leaves sliced into thin ribbons
- 2 shallots, sliced into paper-thin rings
- 3 scallions, sliced thin on an angle
- 1 tbsp dijon mustard
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh dill, loosely packed
- 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
Instructions
- Whisk the dressing first: In the bottom of a large serving bowl, whisk the dijon, the cider vinegar, and the olive oil with the black pepper until it thickens slightly and looks glossy. Drop the shallot rings into it and leave them there while you cook. They will soften and lose their harshness in the acid, which takes about ten minutes and happens on its own.
- Boil the potatoes: Put the halved potatoes in a large pot, cover with cold water by an inch, add the salt, and bring to a boil. Lower to a steady simmer and cook for twelve to fourteen minutes. They are done when a knife slides into one with no grip at all. Starting them in cold water is what keeps the outsides from turning to mush before the centers give.
- Add the green beans and kale to the same pot: Drop the green beans into the boiling water for the last four minutes, and the kale ribbons for the last ninety seconds. The beans should come out bright green and still snap when you bend one, and the kale should be dark and limp. Drain everything together and let it sit in the colander for a minute to steam dry.
- Dress everything while it is steaming: Tip the hot potatoes, beans, and kale straight into the bowl with the dressing and the shallots, add the rinsed white beans, and fold gently with a rubber spatula. Some of the potato edges will break up and thicken the dressing, which is what you want. Fold rather than stir so the green beans stay whole.
- Rest it, then finish with dill: Leave the bowl on the counter for five minutes, which is long enough for the potatoes to absorb most of the dressing and for the whole thing to drop to warm rather than hot. Fold in the scallions and most of the dill, taste, and scatter the rest of the dill across the top before it goes to the table.
Variations
- Caraway and pickle: Add a teaspoon of caraway seed to the dressing and a couple of chopped dill pickles to the bowl for a version that tastes like a Berlin lunch counter.
- Horseradish dressing: Whisk two teaspoons of prepared horseradish into the vinaigrette for a bowl with a sharp heat running underneath the mustard.
- Apple and celery: Fold in a diced tart apple and two sliced celery stalks after dressing for extra crunch and a sweeter, fresher salad.
- Smoked paprika oil: Warm the olive oil with a teaspoon of smoked paprika before whisking the dressing, which stains everything rust colored and adds smoke.
Storage & Leftovers
This keeps four days in a sealed container in the refrigerator and is genuinely good cold, which is not true of most potato dishes. The potatoes firm up and the dressing settles into them further overnight, so day two tastes more strongly of mustard than day one did.
Bring it back to room temperature for twenty minutes before serving rather than reheating it, since the green beans lose their color and their snap the second time they get hot. If you would rather eat it warm, spread it in a skillet over medium heat for three minutes and let some of the potatoes crisp against the pan.
Do not freeze this one. Boiled potatoes go grainy and collapse after thawing, and the green beans turn to string. If you want to work ahead, boil the potatoes and the beans a day early, keep them undressed in the refrigerator, then warm them briefly and dress them when you are ready to eat.
Notes & Tips
- Dress the potatoes hot: This is the whole recipe in one line. A hot cut potato pulls vinaigrette into itself, and a cold one repels it. Have the dressing whisked and waiting in the bowl before the pot is even drained.
- Start potatoes in cold water: Dropping them into water already boiling cooks the outside long before the middle gives, and you get ragged edges around a firm center. Cold water and a steady simmer bring the whole potato along together.
- Cook everything in one pot: Green beans for the last four minutes, kale for the last ninety seconds. One pot, one colander, and the timing takes care of itself while the potatoes finish.
- Slice the shallots paper thin: Thick rings stay harsh and crunch in an unpleasant way. Cut them as thin as you can manage, drop them into the vinegar early, and they turn mild, pink, and silky by the time you serve.
- Salt the water, not the bowl: Half a teaspoon in the pot seasons the potatoes from the inside as they cook. Adding it at the end sits on the surface and tastes sharper for the same amount.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Potatoes, green beans, white beans, and kale share the work in this bowl. The potatoes give it substance and slow carbohydrate, the cannellini beans bring plant protein and creaminess, the green beans keep their snap, and the kale runs a dark, mineral-tasting thread through the middle of it.
- Gold potatoes cooked in their skins hold onto potassium and vitamin C, and their waxy flesh keeps its shape in the bowl rather than falling apart. Cooled slightly before eating, cooked potato also forms resistant starch, the kind of carbohydrate that feeds the bacteria in your gut.
- Cannellini beans go creamy at the edges where they meet the vinaigrette, and their soluble fiber is part of why a bowl of vegetables eats like a full dinner rather than a first course.
- Kale sliced into ribbons and dropped into boiling water for ninety seconds keeps its color and most of its structure, and it brings calcium and vitamin K to a plate that would otherwise be pale.
- Mustard, cider vinegar, shallot, and dill are what make this taste like something rather than boiled vegetables. The acid goes on while everything is hot so it soaks in, the shallot turns sweet sitting in it, and the dill is used in a quantity that puts it among the main flavors.
- As you eat, taste how far the mustard and vinegar traveled into the potatoes while they were hot, and let a warm bowl rather than a hot one give you a reason to sit down and go slowly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which potatoes hold up best?
Waxy ones. Yukon Gold, red potatoes, and small fingerlings all keep their shape and take dressing well. A starchy russet falls apart into the bowl and turns the whole thing into something closer to a mash, which is a different dish and not what you want here.
Can I make it in advance for a party?
Yes, and it is one of the few salads that improves with a couple of hours on the counter. Dress it while the potatoes are hot as written, then leave it covered at room temperature for up to three hours. Hold back half the dill and add it just before people eat.
Is this enough for dinner on its own?
It is in my house, and the white beans are what make that true. If you are feeding people with big appetites, a handful of toasted sunflower seeds on top rounds it out without changing the character of the salad.
My dressing tastes too sharp. What do I do?
Fold in another spoonful of olive oil, or let it sit ten minutes longer, since the potatoes keep absorbing acid as they cool and the bowl mellows on its own. Cider vinegars vary a lot in strength, so start with less than you think and correct at the end.