Southern Creamy Sweet Potato Salad With Bacon
A cold, creamy Southern sweet potato salad with thick cut bacon, hard boiled egg and celery in a mayonnaise and sour cream dressing with cider vinegar and whole grain mustard. Made the day before and served chilled.
Servings 8 servings
Ingredients
For the Salad
- 3 lb sweet potatoes peeled, cut into ¾ inch cubes
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt for the cooking water
- 8 slices thick cut bacon
- 4 large hard boiled eggs peeled and chopped
- 2 stalks celery finely diced
- 4 green onions thinly sliced
For the Dressing
- ¾ cup mayonnaise full fat
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon reserved warm bacon fat
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper freshly ground
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika plus more for the top
Instructions
Cook the Bacon
- Lay the bacon in a cold skillet and cook over medium heat for 10 to 12 minutes, turning once, until genuinely crisp. Drain on paper towels.
- Reserve 1 tablespoon of the warm bacon fat from the pan. Crumble the cooled bacon and set half aside for the top.
Cook and Cool the Sweet Potatoes
- Put the sweet potato cubes in a large pot, cover with cold water by 1 inch and add the 1 tablespoon kosher salt.
- Bring to a boil, reduce to a strong simmer and start testing at 8 minutes. A paring knife should meet a little resistance. Most batches are done between 8 and 10 minutes. Do not cook until soft.
- Drain immediately and spread the cubes in a single layer on a sheet pan. Let them cool completely, 20 to 30 minutes.
Make the Dressing
- Whisk the mayonnaise, sour cream, warm bacon fat, cider vinegar, whole grain mustard, sugar, salt, black pepper and smoked paprika until smooth and thick.
- Taste. The dressing should be slightly too tangy and slightly too salty on its own, because the sweet potatoes will mute it.
Fold and Chill
- Combine the cooled sweet potato, chopped egg, celery, green onion and half the crumbled bacon in a large bowl.
- Pour the dressing over and fold gently with a flexible spatula, lifting from the bottom, until everything is coated. Do not stir hard or the cubes will break.
- Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.
- Before serving, fold in a little reserved dressing if it has thickened, then top with the remaining bacon, extra green onion and a dusting of smoked paprika.
Notes
- Do not overcook: sweet potato goes from firm to puree in about ninety seconds. Test at 8 minutes and pull while there is still resistance.
- Cool completely before dressing: warm cubes thin the mayonnaise and the salad turns soupy and uniformly orange.
- Use the bacon fat: 1 tablespoon of warm fat whisked into the dressing carries smoke through the whole bowl.
- Bacon in two stages: half folded in, half on top just before serving so it stays crisp.
- Taste it cold: chilled food reads underseasoned, so check the seasoning after it has been in the fridge.
- This is not German sweet potato salad: it is the creamy chilled mayonnaise kind, not the warm vinegar and bacon fat kind.
- Storage: 4 days refrigerated. Do not freeze, the mayonnaise breaks and the potato goes grainy.