Make Potato Salad In Half The Time With This Easy Canned Good Shortcut

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Potato salad might be a comfort food for a lot of us, but making it from scratch can feel like such a chore sometimes. The prep time alone can take literal hours, especially for fancier versions like this recipe for creamy seafood potato salad. If you want your salad ready quicker, you can actually take a major shortcut by swapping out fresh potatoes for canned.

Using canned potatoes lets you skip more than half the steps during prep. You won't need to fully cook, scrub, or peel the vegetables. You can shave off another task by using pre-diced potatoes instead of slicing them yourself. The amount of time you save also scales with the amount of salad you're making, so this trick is especially helpful if you need to make a large batch.

For the best results, go with highly rated options like Del Monte Fresh-Cut Diced New Potatoes. They contain no artificial flavors and are non-GMO. The vegetables are also processed and packed during the first few hours of harvesting so you get the freshest possible spuds. Such qualities make them one of the best canned foods you can buy at Target and other chains.

While using canned potatoes can cut down a significant chunk of your prep time, there are a couple of things you still need to do before using it for your recipe. The first of these is to drain and rinse the potatoes. Canned vegetables typically come in a food-safe liquid that preserves flavor but is also loaded with salt. A 14.5-ounce can of Del Monte's diced potatoes, for instance, contains 710 milligrams of sodium (roughly a third of a person's Daily Value), according to the label. The USDA found that draining and rinsing canned produce can reduce the sodium content of canned veggies by as much as 23%. Not only does that make the potatoes a little bit healthier, but it also gives you more flexibility with the flavor since there's less saltiness to compensate for.

It might also help to heat the spuds a little bit before using them. That's because the question of whether canned potatoes are cooked or raw isn't as simple as it seems. While a degree of pre-cooking will occur to kill bacteria before packaging, it's done so without you having any control over the process. Their texture might not be up to your standards straight out of the can, for instance, and so the only way to get them just right is to cook them yourself. This shouldn't take more than a few minutes, however, since the manufacturer's already done part of the job before you. You'll still be saving yourself a lot of time compared to using raw, non-canned spuds.