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.