Czechs are the champions in making potato salad. Believe me, the Czech one tastes the best of all! We call our potato salad “bramborový salát” in the Czech Republic, and you’ll find it most often on the table during the Christmas season when the salad is served with fried carp or schnitzel.
➜ What Is Czech Potato Salad?
Czech classic potato salad is made of boiled potatoes, eggs, root vegetables, dill pickles, and mayonnaise. In addition to salt and pepper, pickle juice and yellow mustard are mixed into the salad.
Potato salad is traditionally served as a side dish with fried carp at Christmas Eve dinner. Not only at Christmas but also on other festive occasions, potato salad appears on the holiday menu.
➤ If you have ever tasted the famous Czech open-faced sandwiches, then know that potato salad can be spread on white bread and forms the basis of the “obložený chlebíček” sandwich.
➜ Ingredients
To make Czech potato salad, we need:
- Potatoes; use all-purpose or waxy gold/yellow potatoes that hold together and don't fall apart when cooked. Cook potatoes with the skin on until done – check with a fork. If potatoes are still too hard, cook them for a little bit longer. Cook the potatoes preferably the day before, and cut into the salad when completely cooled.
- Eggs; hard-boiled and cooled
- Dill pickles; in the US, see if you have a German or Polish deli nearby. There you have a chance to find pickles that taste similar to Czech ones (e.g., German gherkinks are good). In addition to the pickles, we will want to season the salad with a bit of pickle juice. Also, check my recipe on how to make homemade Czech dill pickles!
- Onion; finely cut
- Carrot; fresh carrot, boil it in salt & sour water in advance, and cool it
- Parsley root; as with carrots: boil and cool it. As Karen mentioned in her comment below, it will probably be a problem to get parsley root in the US. Try substituting celeriac, you should have a better probability of finding it in the store.
- Mayonnaise; plain, I used Hellmann's mayonnaise
- Ground black pepper and salt
- Yellow mustard
In the Czech Republic, there are many variations of potato salad. Practically every homemaker has their own recipe. The one I am presenting here is tested in our family, contains basic ingredients, and is simple.
✅ You’ll find the exact amount of ingredients below in the recipe card, which you can also print out.
➜ Instructions
STEP 1: Boil the potatoes in their skin and let them cool down completely, ideally overnight. Boil hard-boiled eggs, cool them, and peel them.
STEP 2: Clean the carrots and parsley root and cut them into 1-2 equal-sized pieces. Cook them in boiling water with a bit of salt and vinegar for about 5 minutes, then cool them quickly with cold water. The vegetables will be soft but not mushy.
STEP 3: Cut the potatoes, eggs, pickles, carrot, and parsley root into cubes about ⅓-inches in size. Peel and finely chop the onion.
STEP 4: Put everything in a large bowl. Add mayonnaise, pickle juice, and yellow mustard. Season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.
MY TIP: Let the potato salad sit in the fridge for at least an hour before serving. Or make a day ahead - it’s always better the next day when all the flavors have a chance to blend!
Interested in Czech cuisine? Discover more authentic Czech food!
➜ Serving
Potato salad is a typical side dish in Czech cuisine, usually served alongside fried breaded meat. Garnish the salad on the plate with a sprig of green parsley as a final touch.
Cook’s Tips
- For the potato salad, choose potatoes of roughly the same size to be cooked evenly.
- Some Czech recipes call for adding celery root or peas (frozen sweet peas, thawed) to the salad. Try it and see how the taste suits you.
- Store the salad in the refrigerator covered with plastic wrap for up to 4 days.
Pronunciation
Curious how Czechs pronounce "bramborový salát"? I recorded a short audio clip to give you an idea! I'm a native speaker, so I guarantee an authentic Czech voice.
More Czech salads:
- Vlašský salát – ideal as a snack salad
- Pochoutkový salát – deli salad with mayo
Tried this recipe?
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Czech Potato Salad – Bramborový salát
Ingredients
- 2 lb (900 g) potatoes
- 2 carrot mid-size
- 1 onion smaller
- 1 parsley root mid-size
- 6 dill pickles mid-size
- 2 Tbsp pickle juice
- 5 eggs hard-boiled
- 5 Tbsp mayonnaise
- 1 Tbsp yellow mustard
- 1 and ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper ground
Instructions
- Boil the potatoes in their skin and let them cool completely, ideally overnight. Boil hard-boiled eggs, cool them, and peel them.
- Clean the carrots and parsley root and cut them into 1-2 equal-sized pieces. Cook them in boiling water with a bit of salt and vinegar for about 5 minutes, then cool them quickly with cold water. The vegetables will be soft but not mushy.
- Cut the potatoes, eggs, pickles, carrot, and parsley root into cubes about ⅓-inches in size. Peel and finely chop the onion.
- Put everything in a large bowl. Add mayonnaise, pickle juice, and yellow mustard. Season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.
Notes
- Makes 6 portions as a side dish.
- Let the potato salad sit in the fridge for at least an hour before serving.
- For the potato salad, choose potatoes of roughly the same size to cook evenly.
- Some Czech recipes call for adding celery root or peas to the salad. Try it and see how the taste suits you.
DISCLAIMER: Because I come from Central Europe, my recipes are based on metric units such as grams or milliliters. Check out how I convert metric units to the U.S. system:
Conversion chart
pz
This salad is excellent! Thank you so much for the recipe!
Petra Kupská
I thank you for your comment! This type of potato salad is one of the most festive dishes in the Czech Republic. Every time bramborový salát is served, I know it's a special day 🙂
kristena
I do mine like this, minus the root vegetables. I will try this!
Petra Kupská
Try it, and I'd love your feedback on how the potato salad tasted! Czechs use root vegetables quite a lot in cooking; vegetables like carrots or parsley are common and affordable in the shops here in the Czech Republic.
Crystal S.
I was so happy to find your blog today. In 2007-2008, I lived in Sokolov for one year teaching English. Enjoying the local food was one of my favorite parts of living in your beautiful country. I loved bramborový salát, the rohliky sandwiches I would buy for lunch at my school, smažený sýr, and the exquisite Christmas cookies prepared by my friends' families. I have looked at many Czech recipes over the years, but always had trouble finding websites or books that seemed authentic. Your recipes remind me so much of my time in Czechia that I feel homesick! Thank you for starting to publish this wonderful resource. I can't wait to try some.
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Crystal, thanks for the lovely message and for sharing your memories of the Czech Republic! I'm glad you enjoyed your time here. My kids also have native English speakers at school – both from the UK and the U.S. They are primarily young people and rotate after a year. Our kids love them; these teachers constantly enrich them with traditions from their country and tell them how life is elsewhere. I believe Czech cuisine is exciting, and thank you for confirming that. The dishes you listed are typical of Czech food. Moreover, you reminded me that we would soon start baking Christmas cookies, which Czech women make a month before Christmas 🙂 Sending warm greetings from Bohemia, Petra
Karen
Hello,
I need to say a few things here. Where I live, in Canada, almost all the prepared ingredients plus the potatoes are different in taste. Call me a food snob, it's ok.
Pickles - big deal for me. Local pickles (both in Canada and the US) are salty and sour. Quite a different taste. Unless one has the luck to have a German or a Polish deli nearby, or makes their own, it is the salty/sour ones available only. Some supermarket chains can carry Polish of German pickles in their international food sections. (The sweet sliced pickles also sold here are not a substitute).
Mayonnaise. Here, salty. Just salty. Nothing like the sweet and sour creamy thing I was used to. I get mine from a Polish deli, imported from Poland (but just one kind, I find the others there salty as well).
Yellow mustard - again, salty and sour.
Potatoes - unless the variety "yukon gold" is commercially available in local stores, it's the white starchy things.
Parsley root? Good luck! I can't even get it here in regional farmer's markets.
Back home (CR) I learned to make the salad with some twists, for example, added peas, and sometimes celeriac (but no onions - my aunt used onions in hers). The vegetables would be cooked in water with the addition of vinegar or pickle brine to make them pleasantly 'navinulé' (acidulated).
The mayonnaise would be mixed with yogurt (my mother's attempt to reduce the calories...) and often, lemon juice would be added for extra zinginess.
Always better the next day!
Also, some people would cut the veggies really fine, about a cubic centimetre size for the potatoes (there exists the round frame with the wire mesh for pressing the potatoes through).
I know, it's a first world problem, but it is interesting how a few simple ingredients with the same name differ from region to region, in this case across the Atlantic, and how our taste buds are set in the initial impression of the food. There is no potato salad like mom's ;-)!
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Karen,
First of all, my sincere thanks for your comment. Since I live in the Czech Republic, I don't know in detail the differences between Czech ingredients and those available in the USA, Canada, or other countries. I know that there are nuances, and I am grateful that you point them out from the side of someone who lives on the other side of the "pond" 🙂
In the year that I have been running this blog with Czech recipes, I have already gotten some feedback from my readers. They write to me with tips about flour or butter, for example. I have a big task ahead of me in the future: to incorporate this knowledge better into recipes so that those who cannot buy Czech ingredients can try them out.
Specifically, with potato salad, the Czechs are very inventive and use various ingredients. In our house, we put onions in the salad, and my parents used to add Gotha salami, a Czech specialty. My parents-in-law don't put mayonnaise in their salad at all, but vegetable oil does.
One thing I absolutely agree with: potato salad needs a few hours of rest after preparation, so it is often made the day before.
Thanks again for your helpful suggestions; I appreciate them.
I send greetings from Bohemia and have a wonderful Christmas! ????
Mayali
Ahoj z Kanady! Many years ago I lived for several months with a Czech family just outside of Prague, and was thrilled to find your blog to help me recreate many of those typical homecooked meals I enjoyed so much! Thankfully, where I live in Canada, I have access to many of the products necessary for your lovely recipes. A question for you about what you call parsley root... Would a parsnip (pastinák) be a good choice for this? It has a stronger taste than celeriac, but appears more like what you have in your photo. Děkuji moc 🙂
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Mayali, thank you for your lovely comment, and sorry for my late reply; I was on holiday with my family and not on the computer. About parsley root. I know it is sometimes a problem to get this root vegetable abroad in a regular store. I've read discussions of people living in the US and they said they sometimes substitute parsley for parsnip. To be honest, I've never tried it because parsley root is very common in the Czech Republic. In my opinion, nothing special will happen if you simply omit the parsley in the recipe. Have a wonderful summer!