I didn’t become a fan of potato salads until I realized that my homemade ones didn’t have to resemble the typical store-bought version, heavily coated in a mayonnaise-based dressing. If I put a creamy dressing on potato salad, it’s usually one of the variations I shared last week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. I far prefer the tangy combination of yogurt and sour cream over the cloying richness of mayonnaise when making Potato Salad with Pickles. Likewise, Sweet Potato-Mushroom Salad benefits from the tart-and-sweet flavor Creamy Balsamic Salad Dressing.

The potato salad recipe I share in this week’s column pulls together flavors from some of these recipes but mostly stands out for its ease and speed, which make it a staple of my personal boating meals and my Fine Dining: Front Country workshops. Ready-to-serve artichoke hearts and olives add zing. Carrots travel well, but I often substitute other fresh ingredients I need to use from the cooler: bell pepper, snap beans or peas, asparagus, cucumber, scallions and more. Hard-boiled eggs provide instant protein.

Learn more about cooking potatoes and get the complete recipe for Quick Potato Salad in my column.

Make it, share it.
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Twice as Tasty

When I’m packing and cooking meals on outdoor adventures, I like to plan them in blocks, using the same base ingredients to create two separate meals and doing as much of the time-consuming prep, like chopping vegetables and boiling potatoes until tender, in one go. As I mention in this week’s column, I originally developed Quick Potato Salad as a way to use potatoes I’d cooked the previous evening for Potato Bowl with Black Bean Sauté, published in the Waggoner Cruising Guide. If I can prepare a ready-to-eat salad for the next day’s lunch as a side project while cooking dinner, without feeling like I’m just boxing up cold leftovers, I’m a happy camper.

Here are just a few other recipes on the blog that I intentionally developed as one-prep, two-meal combinations for cooking at home or outdoors. If you compare their ingredient lists or techniques, you’ll notice overlaps that can be prepared as a single unit and then divided between two meals. A rack of grilled vegetables can be enjoyed on pasta and later in pancakes. Risotto can be cooked partway and then flavored differently for two separate dinners. While prepping fish and vegetables for a fancy weekend meal, the rest can be tossed in marinade and grilled for a quick weeknight dinner.

• Chipotle Grilled Shrimp and Vegetable and Shrimp Fried Rice
• Creamy Grilled Pepper, Onion, and Garlic Pasta and Grilled Pepper Pancakes with Goat Cheese
• Chickpea Vegetable Skillet with Couscous and Feta and Chickpea and Vegetable Couscous Salad
• Marinated and Grilled Fish Skewers and Grilled or Baked Fish Cakes
• Two-Meal Garden Risotto and Shrimp and Green Vegetable Risotto

You can find more meal block ideas in the recipe index. I dive into them in detail, and share my outdoor meal planning, packing, and cooking tools and tips, in this workshop.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.