This is a nice alternative to “traditional” potato salads and requires no chilling time for the completed salad. Truly, it’s great served closer to room temperature, though it can also be chilled ahead of time, if you like.
The dressing is thick, like a dip, so it doubles as a dip, too. It’s thick so that it coats the potatoes well just like a mayonnaise-based potato salad would. Alternatively, if you want the dressing to be thinner, you could add more salsa and/or lime juice along with some avocado oil or other vegetable oil.
Roasted Potato and Avocado Salad with Avocado Lime Dressing
Roasted potatoes give an extra boost of flavor to this Southwest take on potato salad.
Ingredients
Roasted Garlic Avocado Lime Dressing
- 1 large avocado, ripe (about 1 cup of pulp)
- 1 Tbsp. lime zest (about 2 limes' worth)
- 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 2 limes' worth)
- 1/2 cup roasted salsa verde (or salsa of your choice)
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/4 cup roasted garlic cloves (I batch roast garlic and keep it in the freezer)
- 2 Tbsp. fresh cilantro
- 2 tsp. fresh oregano
- 1 tsp. ground guajillo chile pepper (or ancho chile pepper)
- 1/2 tsp. Goya Adobo All-Purpose Seasoning with Pepper
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt (or more, to taste)
- 1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper (to taste)
Roasted Potato and Avocado Salad
- 5 large russet potatoes (cut into bite-sized wedges)
- 1/2 cup avocado oil or other vegetable oil (between 1/4 and 1/2 cup is needed)
- scant tsp. Goya Adobo All-Purpose Seasoning with Pepper
- scant tsp. ground guajillo chile pepper (or ancho chile pepper)
- 3 large avocados (diced)
- 3 medium Anaheim chiles (sliced in half, lengthwise, and seeded)
- 2 large poblano chile peppers (sliced in half, lengthwise, and seeded)
- 2 large jalapeno chile peppers (sliced in half, lengthwise, and seeded)
- 1/2 cup small diced red onion
- 2/3 cup small diced orange bell pepper
- 4 oz. Cotija cheese (sliced, then crumbled)
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro (see Recipe Notes about substitutions)
Instructions
Roasted Garlic Avocado Lime Dressing
- Blend all ingredients in food processor or blender until smooth, adding salt to taste. This consistency is thicker like a dip so if you stopped here and served it with roasted potato wedges, you're winning. It's thick so that it clings to the potatoes and vegetables like traditional potato salad, but if you want it thinner you could always add more salsa or lime juice along with some avocado oil or other vegetable oil.
Roasted Potato and Avocado Salad
- Preheat oven to 425F. Cut russets into bite-sized wedges and spread them out single layer on a foil-lined sheet pan. I do these in two batches so that I don't crowd the pan too much. Add about 1/4 cup of oil to the potatoes and season them with Goya adobo seasoning and guajillo chile powder, then toss them all together and spread them out.
- Roast them at 400F for about 35 to 40 minutes, checking every 10 minutes to loosen them and toss them around a bit, until roasted to your liking. Set them aside, uncovered.
- After trimming and seeding them, arrange the chiles and chile peppers skin side up on a lightly greased, foil-lined sheet pan.
- Roast the peppers under the broiler on a foil-lined pan until skins are blackened, then remove them from the oven and fold the foil over them to steam them for 30 minutes.
- Remove the skins and dice them up. When ready to serve, toss the potatoes with some of the dressing until well coated, then add the rest of the ingredients, reserving just a bit of the cheese and cilantro to sprinkle over the finished salad to garnish it. This is good served room temperature or chilled. If you chill it ahead of time, keep the reserved cheese and cilantro garnish on the side. This is so when you taste it again just before serving, you can add a squeeze of lime juice or dash of seasoning, if you like, and then re-toss it before garnishing it.
Notes
Some people are very sensitive to the flavor of cilantro and hate it, saying it tastes off somehow, sometimes soapy. Research at Cornell University determined it’s due to a particular gene these people possess. Though we pity these people who have this defective gene, you (the superior folk who love cilantro) can still enjoy the small amount needed in the dressing because the other flavors of the salad will likely mask its presence. However, it’s a much harder sell when being added to the salad itself, so if you’re serving this to people who are sensitive to it, omit the chopped cilantro from the salad and simply add a couple of tablespoons of chopped flat leaf Italian parsley, instead.