I've been making potato salad for a friend's July 4th picnic for a zillion years now, and until now I haven't come up with a definitive potato salad. But this year, I am going to make my slightly altered version of the Creamy Potato Salad recipe in Jasper White's The Summer Shack Cookbook. It's killer, and I promise if you make it you will be a food hero to whoever you bring it to.

I just replaced the chopped kosher dill pickle he calls for with sweet relish because I like my potato salad a little sweet. Also, because we do love bacon at Serious Eats, I add a little chopped bacon to the salad just before I serve it, to give it just a touch of smokiness. The bacon is most assuredly optional.

White's great recipe has a couple of exceedingly useful tips.

"The trick to making a great creamy potato salad is to cook the potatoes whole, so the outsides are very soft by the time the centers are cooked through but still firm."

He uses distilled vinegar in the potato salad because "the acute sharpness that makes the vinegar undesirable for most dishes, especially vinaigrettes, is what spikes the flavor perfectly in this dish."

He also notes that this potato salad is best made well in advance: "It is really at its best the second day."

White says to use medium-sized, all-purpose (medium-starch) potatoes for this potato salad. I've found that Yukon Golds work best.

Creamy Potato Salad