The Secret Rodney Scott Swears By for the Best Potato Salad

Potato salad is a side dish that sparks strong opinions. And Rodney Scott has many of them. The award-winning pitmaster and owner of Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ, with five locations across the South, “grew up loving potato salad,” he shared at the Food & Wine Classic in Charleston. 

“My Aunt Fannie, she used to always make potato salad and it was delicious,” said Scott, who led a seminar with chef Chris Shepherd and Top Chef judge and executive producer Gail Simmons on how to build the perfect meat-and-three plate. “For me, the required potato salad has a nice, sweet, kind of spicy bite to it. That’s what I want. I don’t like a bland potato salad.”

Alongside a whole hog, a Vietnamese-inspired slaw from Shepherd, and cornbread with miso-chive butter from Simmons, Scott showed the audience how to make a potato salad that’s anything but bland — and it includes a “controversial” ingredient.

Start with soft potatoes

Scott shared that he prefers to use red-skinned potatoes, unpeeled, for his potato salad. “I love this potato because the skin kind of adds a flavor to it for me,” he said. He quarters them and boils them in salted water for about 15 to 20 minutes, until they yield easily to a knife.

“You don’t want a potato that’s hard, because then you’re gonna be trying to chomp into that potato salad,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve all been to some restaurant — not ours — and found that hard-to-eat potato salad.”

Use a ‘controversial’ ingredient

Scott’s mayonnaise-based potato salad is packed with flavor from yellow mustard, distilled white vinegar, sugar, red pepper flakes, cayenne, and an ingredient that might raise eyebrows. 

“Here’s a controversial discussion: the type of relish. There’s sweet and then there’s dill. Some people don’t like it too sweet. I do, and today I have the microphone,” quipped Scott. 

The type of mayo also matters — especially if you’re in the South, where the cult-favorite brand Duke’s reigns supreme. Made with only egg yolks and a blend of distilled and apple cider vinegars, the South Carolina-born mayo adds a subtly sweet tang to the dressing. 

“I use Duke’s — if you don’t like it, don’t go outside to key my car because it’s not here,” said Scott with a laugh. He also folds in a generous amount of chopped hard-boiled eggs, which he likes to break up with his hands. 

Put hot potatoes in the dressing 

If you’ve taken the time to make a flavorful dressing, you want to make sure your potatoes absorb as much of it as possible. Scott’s tip is to add your potatoes to the dressing as soon as they’re done cooking.

“You definitely want your potatoes hot and of course fork-tender before you take ‘em outta your pot,” said Scott. “Once they’re cold, they put up a little barrier like, Yeah, I don’t wanna hang out.” When they’re still warm, “they just invite everything in,” he explained.