Nothing more magical sounding than the words “potato” and “salad” together. Two of our favorites coming together in this must try dish. Kick up your potato salad game with this creamy, delicious Vegan Buffalo Potato Salad featuring a deliciously bold dressing. This aint your grandma’s potato salad, get ready for a spicy twist, it is sure to be the talk of the town. Perfect for picnics, potlucks, tailgates, and so much more, everyone will be standing in line to get some of this tastiness!
Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients, and gluten free.
Hi there, Ameera here!
We are a potato salad and macaroni salad loving family! Well, let me rephrase that, we are actually an “anything salad” loving family. You name it, we will try to “saladize it.” LOL Salads are kind of our thing! We simply can’t get enough salads. They are just that good!
Buffalo Style
We certain didn’t invent the Buffalo Potato Salad; it has been around since, well . . . as long as I can remember. I’ve seen quite a few variations of Buffalo potato salads. Mom and I wanted to create a WFPB nut-free (not rely on cashew cream mayo) version that tasted amazing!
However, if cashew cream mayo is your thing (which we LOVE it too), you can easily incorporate the cashew mayo instead of the tahini.
After creating quite a few kitchen tests, we landed on one that we think is awesomely delicious, and we hope you will think so too.
Potato Salads
My dad considers himself a potato salad connoisseur. He LOVES potato salad! He is always begging me and Mom to make some for him.
When we told him that we were going to make a Buffalo potato salad, well let’s just say, he wasn’t all that happy about it. LOL He just couldn’t wrap his head around how it was suppose to come together.
Our first few kitchen tests were less than stellar, way too heavy on the buffalo sauce and the potatoes were old school, you know that kind of “over mixed” sort of texture where everything really sticks together in a lump.
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Sweet Spot
We finally landed on a nice balance of hot sauce to potato ratio, plus we found that keeping the integrity of the cooked potatoes played a role. We used red skinned potatoes, kept the skins on, and really monitored the boiling of the potatoes.
We simmered the potatoes on a low boil so the skins stayed intact. We also pulled them off the stove just when they became fork tender and ran them under cold water to stop the cooking and then handled them carefully during the mixing process.
The end result was stellar in my humble opinion. I’ll let Mom tell you more!
Hi! Robin here.
MMmMmmM Buffalo Potato Salad, I wish I had some right now. Although we made this potato salad months ago, I remember its deliciousness like it was yesterday.
I loved the texture of this salad, the crunchy celery and red onion contrasted the tender potatoes and chickpeas perfectly, all smothered in this beautiful, rich and creamy Buffalo sauce.
I could have eaten the whole dish. TP109 went crazy for it. He said it was pure Buffalo perfection. Big score from him, especially since he wasn’t a fan of the earlier kitchen tests!
We hope you give this deliciousness a try! We just know you are going to love it!
If you try these tasty taters, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us! We would love to hear from you.
Products Used:
- Medium stock pot for boiling the potatoes
- Box grater (or vegetable razor)
Vegan Buffalo Potato Salad
- Prep Time: 15 Minutes
- Cook Time: 15 Minutes
- Total Time: 40 Minutes (10 Minutes cool down for potatoes)
- Yield: 4-5 Servings 1x
- Category: Salads
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Description
Nothing more magical sounding than the words “potato” and “salad” together. Two of our favorites coming together in this must try dish. Kick up your potato salad game with this creamy, delicious Vegan Buffalo Potato Salad featuring a deliciously bold dressing. This aint your grandma’s potato salad, get ready for a spicy twist, it is sure to be the talk of the town. Perfect for picnics, potlucks, tailgates, and so much more, everyone will be standing in line to get some of this tastiness!
Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients, and gluten free.
Ingredients
- 2 lbs. red skinned potatoes, unpeeled, cubed *
- ¾ to 1 cup celery, diced
- ½ cup red onion, fine dice
- ½ cup grated carrot *
- 1 – [ 15.5 oz. ] can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Buffalo Sauce Ingredients:
- ¼ cup hot sauce *
- 2 Tablespoons tahini *
- 2 Tablespoons + 2 teaspoons unsweetened plain plant yogurt *
- 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- ¾ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¾ teaspoon onion powder
- 2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
- ¼ + 1/8 teaspoon celery seed (+/-)
- ¼ teaspoon dried dill weed
Instructions
- Cube the unpeeled red skinned potatoes, rinse them really well to remove any excess starch, then place them into a medium stock pot covered with water, sprinkle with sea salt, and place onto the stove over high heat. Bring to a boil, then immediately lower to a very low boil. You don’t want the potatoes to break up by using a fast rolling boil. Simmer just until fork tender, about 13 to 15 minutes, then immediately remove, drain, and gently rinse under cold water for approximately 3 minutes to slow/stop the cooking process as much as possible. Lay them out on a baking sheet to completely cool.
- In the meantime, prepare the vegetables (celery, carrots, onions). Set aside.
- Make the Buffalo Sauce by placing all the sauce ingredients into a small bowl and whisking to combine.
- Once the cubed potatoes are completely cooled, place them into a large bowl, add the celery, carrots, onions, and chickpeas. Pour the Buffalo Sauce over the potatoes, veggies, and chickpeas, gently toss. Taste test for flavor. Add more seasoning, if needed. Best if served immediately at room temperature.
Notes
*Tips: Watch the potatoes very closely toward the end of their cooking period. You want to catch them just when they become fork tender. If you overcook the potatoes, they fall apart. We typically select a large potato cube, remove it from the boiling water, run it under cold water and bite into it to see if it is tender enough (and discard or eat). Repeat this method until the potatoes are just tender. Then drain and very gently rinse the cooked potatoes under a stream of cold water until the exterior of the potatoes are cold (several minutes), then very gently shake off any excess water and allow to drain for a few minutes. The key is to handle the cooked potatoes gently, so they don’t break down. Some folks really like that mashed look for their potato salads, we did not for this recipe. We prefer a lot of dimension and texture. Then place the cooked potatoes onto a baking sheet to cool completely. Taking time to remove any lingering water that hangs onto the potatoes will ensure that your dressing will not get watered down. The same goes for draining and rinsing the chickpeas, thoroughly rinse them, but also shake off as much excess water as you can. We typically drain the rinsed beans for several minutes in a colander.
*Tahini: The tahini should be room temperature and free flowing/runny. If the tahini has been refrigerated, scoop out the recipe amount into a bowl and allow to come to room temperature. Cold tahini will be clumpy, resulting in a clumpy Buffalo dressing.
*Unsweetened Plain Plant Yogurt Substitutions: We have not tried any substitutions, but we think the following ideas might work well: Vegan Mayo, Vegan Sour Cream, Cashew Cream, or Silken Tofu. Keep in mind that each of these have their own flavor and you may need to slightly adjust seasonings.
*Cubed Potatoes: Cut the potatoes into 1 to 1 ½ cubes. Keep the size as uniform as possible. Don’t cut them too small.
*Grated Carrots: We used a vegetable julienne peeler to cut the carrots into long thin strips, then cut those strips into small pieces. We used grated carrots in previous kitchen tests, and while grated carrots work perfectly in this recipe, we really enjoyed the texture of the julienne peeled carrots. We tried diced carrots as well, they were just a tad too crunchy. We suggest using either grated or julienned carrots. For those interested, we used a Kuhn Rikon Julienne Peeler.
*Hot Sauce: We used Frank’s RedHot Original Hot Sauce.
* Serving: 4 to 5
* Storage: Refrigerate, use within 5 days.
This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.
WOW! Awesome recipe! This combination is wonderful and the sauce is absolutely stellar! I made it exactly as written and it was so good I made a second batch of the sauce. I topped mine with extra sauce (because you cannot ever get too much buffalo sauce). Tomorrow I’m serving the leftovers with crispy tofu fingers and the extra sauce for dipping. Thank you for all the work you do. We downloaded the Week 68 menu and we are loving it!
Hi there Beth 🙂
Yaaayyy!!! We are so thrilled to hear that you enjoyed this recipe, and we couldn’t agree more – there is no such thing as too much yummy sauce 😀 Thank you so much for taking the time to write. We are so excited that you are enjoying our recipes and menu! We truly appreciate your awesome feedback.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Another delicious meal! I don’t ever really comment about recipes, but I’ve made a total of 4 dishes from your blog in the last week or so and have been blown away by all of them. You have definitely elevated any oil free PBWF recipe I’ve made to this point. You’ve given me hope that PBWF dishes can be bursting with flavor and not bland and boring! After making this dish, my husband is even on board for me to start incorporating these meals into his diet. I look forward to making more comments about your mouth drooling recipes. You’ve… Read more »
Hi there Maggie 🙂
Yaaaayyyy!!!! We are SUPER excited to hear that you enjoyed this recipe as well as other recipes that you’ve tried from our blog. We truly appreciate your kind words and wonderful feedback. We are beyond thrilled to hear that you’ve been enjoying our flavor combinations and that you husband is looking forward to eating more WFPB recipes – total WIN! Glad to be on this WFPB journey with you. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences with us!
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Made this tonight and oh my gosh it was soooo good!
Hi there Karla 🙂
Woo hoo!!! We are super excited you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you so much for sharing your awesome feedback and for taking the time to write.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Made this tonight. I loved it! It’s a little too hot for husband so I’ll try a little less hot sauce. I definitely want to make this again. Great potluck idea!
Hi there Lisa 🙂
Woot!!! We are so thrilled to hear that you loved this recipe. Yes, it definitely delivers on the buffalo heat factor. The best part is that the hot sauce amount can be easily adjusted to fit your taste 🙂 We appreciate you sharing your awesome feedback and for taking the time to write.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
So good! Perfect for the BBQ season! I used my kimchi hot sauce and it was yummy. Definitely a recipe that will be on repeat!
Hi there SandraM 🙂
Woo hoo! We are SUPER excited you enjoyed this recipe. We appreciate you sharing your wonderful review and you plan to put it on repeat. Thank you so much for taking the time to write.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
This recipe looks great but, it’s not vegan…I was so disappointed. I’d understand if you at least had tested some of the substitution suggestions but to put this out there as vegan is disappointing. This was my first time stumbling upon your page and was excited to see such a wide variety but lost me at mislabeling.
Tracy, Your statement about this recipe not being vegan is inaccurate. Would please point out which ingredient you feel is not vegan and why?
Thank you
-Ameera and Robin.
This potato salad is fantastic! I love the crunch of the veggies alongside the creaminess of the potatoes and dressing. I used hummus in place of the plant yogurt, and it turned out great. I ate it on top of lettuce leaves to make a meal that had a balance of starches and veggies. I might dial back the hot sauce a tiny bit next time. Thanks!
Hi there Maria 🙂
YAYYYY!!! We are so happy that you gave this recipe a try and enjoyed it! Thank you so much for taking time to leave us an awesome review!
-Ameera and Robin
This was so delicious I ended up making it twice in the same week! Took it to two parties and it was a big hit. Just the right amount of heat. Really appreciated the detailed instructions on how to keep the potatoes intact. Thanks for taste testing until you got it just right!
Hi there Denise,
YAYYY!!! We are so happy that you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you so much for leaving us an awesome review.
-Ameera and Robin
This Buffalo potato salad is on fire! Next time I’ll double (or even triple!) it. The sauce is SO good, I made an extra batch for my veggie burgers. Thanks so much for creating awesome vegan dishes!
Hi there Erica,
WOOO HOOO!!! We are so happy that you gave this recipe a try and enjoyed it. Thank you so much for taking time to leave us a fantastic review.
-Ameera and Robin
OMG! This is the best potato salad I’ve ever had! Thank you! I used Tabasco as the hot sauce so the whole recipe comes in at 420mg sodium. I have to maintain a 1500mg sodium/day and I have trouble finding things that I can eat that actually taste good. This is tremendous.
Hi there John,
YAYYY!!! We are thrilled that you enjoyed this recipe. Thank you so much for taking time to leave us a fantastic review.
-Ameera and Robin