The Best Vegan Potato Salad You’ll Ever Eat

This vegan potato salad is guaranteed to make you the star of your next summer BBQ or potluck.

It feels funny to write that because, well, I used to hate potato salad. The potato salad I grew up on was dowsed in gloopy mayonnaise, served out of industrial-sized plastic buckets at school events and fundraisers. Yuck.

But, here I am, two decades later, sharing a potato salad recipe that I genuinely love. It features perfectly cooked baby potatoes coated in an incredibly creamy dressing that’s tangy and packed with so many fun flavors. Plus, despite being made without mayo, it’s perfectly creamy and indulgent while still being pretty wholesome.

Table of Contents
1. Why you’ll love this recipe
2. Step by step photos
3. Tips for making this recipe
4. Frequently asked questions
5. Watch: How to make Vegan Potato Salad
6. Recipe Card

Why you’ll love this recipe

Summer perfect and easy. Potato salad is a quintessential summer recipe, and I promise that one bite of this recipe will bring the taste of summer. Bring it potlucks, barbecues, and picnics! Plus, it’s easy to make ahead of time and can be made in 30 minutes.

For more perfect-for summer non-traditional salads, be sure to try my Roasted Beet and Fennel Salad, Sweet and Spicy Smashed Cucumber Salad, Instant Pot Pearl Couscous and Lentil Salad, or Charred Corn Salad with White Beans.

As creamy as the classic but better for you. This potato salad is made with wholesome plant-based ingredients but you’d never know it because it tastes so creamy and indulgent! Instead of mayo, the dressing base consists of tahini and coconut yogurt, two of my plant-based superstar ingredients. It’s naturally gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, and has no added oil.

If you’re looking for more ways to use up tahini, my 30-minute tahini pasta and crispy smashed potatoes with ginger-tahini dressing are fabulous!

Versatile and easy to customize. Whereas classic potato salad has to be served chill (warm mayo = disaster), this potato salad can be served warm as soon as you make it, but it’s also delicious chilled. For customization ideas, read the Frequently Asked Questions section.

How to make vegan potato salad

First, gather your ingredients!

Cut small potatoes in half (larger potatoes in chunks) and cover with cold water; season with salt. Simmer just until tender – a fork pierced into the potatoes should offer the slightest bit of resistance. Drain the potatoes and rest in the colander for 5 minutes to dry out but keep warm.

Meanwhile, make the dressing. Whisk together the tahini, coconut yogurt, and mustards.

Add in the garlic, lemon zest and juice, celery seeds, caper brine, salt and pepper. Whisk the dressing until well combined.

Add in 1 tablespoon of the chopped dill and stir to combine.

Coat the warm potatoes in the dressing, gently tossing.

To the potato salad, add the capers, red onions, jalapeños (if using), and toss gently.

Finish with the remaining dill and chives, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve warm or chill for at least one hour.

Tips for making this recipe

Pick small, waxy potatoes

For potato salad, you want distinct pieces of potatoes, not mushy blobs stuck together So a waxy, thin-skinned potato is best, as they have the least amount of starch and keep their shape when boiled. Thin-skinned potatoes also cook more quickly, and to keep things even speedier, I use small-sized potatoes (they cook in just 8 to 12 minutes).

The most common varieties of small, waxy potatoes to use in this recipe: baby red potatoes, fingerling potatoes, and new potatoes. At some grocery stores, you might also find “peewee potatoes” (also great and very cute).

If you can only find full-sized red potatoes, cut them into chunks about the size of the halved baby potatoes (see the photos in in the “how to make vegan potato salad” section for a visual reference). And if you can only find Yukon gold potatoes, these are your next best bet. They are not as waxy, but also not as starchy as Russets (I do not recommend using those in this recipe). Again, cut them into chunks.

Cook potatoes in cold water and season with salt

Cooking potatoes in cold water helps them cook more evenly. They’re dense little guys and require more time to heat through than most other veggies (are potatoes considered veggies? thoughts?). Adding them to boiling water can lead to mushy on the outside and undercooked on the inside.

And seasoning the water with salt is essential for a rounded depth of flavor. If you wait to add salt at the end, it won’t penetrate into the interior of the potatoes.

Don’t overcook the potatoes!

Soft potatoes are great for creamy mashed potatoes, but not for potato salad. For reference, I simmered these baby red potatoes for just 8 minutes.

Tip: To test whether the potatoes are done, insert a fork into a potato. It should give just the slightest resistance. You do NOT want to wait until they fall apart when forked.

Allow the potatoes to dry

I allow the potatoes to briefly dry in a colander for 5 minutes to drain off excess water. Drier potatoes will enable the dressing to better cling to each potato, making for a delightfully saucy potato salad.

Dress the potatoes while warm

The nice thing about making a non-mayo-based potato salad, is that you can serve it warm (if you wish). I love serving it warm after making it – it feels a little more grown up and elegant. And since we’re not using any egg-based ingredients, it’s okay to dress the potatoes while warm. Dressing while the potatoes are still warm helps them absorb more of the dressing and the flavors.

That said, if you have leftovers, this potato salad is also very tasty once chilled.

Ingredient Tips

For the coconut yogurt, I recommend using the best variety you can find, as it’s a key ingredient. My favorite coconut yogurts are thick and tangy: CocoJune, Culina, and GT’s CocoYo. I have purchased all of these brands at Sprouts and Whole Foods. And this should be obvious, but you need to use a plain, unsweetened variety (no one wants raspberry-flavored potato salad!

If you can’t find a good-quality plain coconut yogurt, you can use use vegan sour cream. My preferred brands are Kite Hill Foods and Tofutti. If using sour cream, you’ll likely need to use less lemon juice and salt.

For the tahini, my preferred brands are Soom Tahini, Seed + Mill, Beirut Tahini Sesame Paste, and Baron’s (affiliate links).

I include a range for the amount of dill, as some folks are big fans of dill (hi, me) and some are not. If you hate dill, obvi don’t use it (you can use flat-leaf parsley). Like dill but not love it? Use 1/3 cup. And if you love dill, use the full 1/2 cup amount.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I serve potato salad with?

Serve it plain and bring it a barbecue, potluck, or picnic!

If you want to serve it alongside other summer sides or salads, try this Instant Pot Pearl Couscous and Lentil Salad or any of the salads in this roundup of three vegan salads.

For a comfort food pairing, serve alongside my Crispy Baked Mac and Cheese.

And if you have my cookbook, The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook, this potato salad would be FABULOUS with the Baked Beans in Chapter 2

Can I make this ahead of time? How do I store it?

Sure, if you don’t care to serve it warm, you can certainly make it ahead. It will stay good in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 to 5 days.

How can I customize this potato salad?

Glad you asked! There are lots of options.

Substitute the capers for pickles (see the “notes” in the recipe card). Swap the celery seeds with finely celery leaves (or thinly sliced celery).

Not a dill fan? Add some parsley for color and freshness instead. You can also replace the chives with thinly sliced scallions. Got baby mouth? Skip the jalapeño. Or for more tangy, add a spoon or two of pickled jalapeños.

For a nutrition punch, add 1/2 cup of blanched green beans or asparagus, or thinly sliced raw radishes, red/yellow bell peppers, or finely shredded red cabbage. The potato salad is quite saucy so it should be able to coat this amount of veggies.

Watch! How to Make Vegan Potato Salad

If you love this herbed vegan potato salad, please leave a rating and review with your feedback and tag me on Instagram with your remakes :)