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Potato Salad

You'll need: Pot, Mixing bowl. Adapted for home kitchens by Halite from the U.S. War Department's Army Recipes (TM 10-412, 1946): scaled down from 100 servings, 1946 ingredients swapped for ones sold today, and the method rewritten. The recipe as printed is the Original version in this recipe's history.

6 servingsBy U.S. War Department on Army Recipes, TM 10-412 (1946)

Ingredients

  • 776g (1 ¾ lb) Potatoes, fresh (unpeeled weight)
  • 128g (4 ½ oz) Onions, fresh (unpeeled weight)
  • 43ml (3 tbsp) Vinegar
  • 28ml (2 tbsp) Mayonnaise or salad dressing
  • 5.1g (¾ tsp) Salt
  • 0.85g (¼ tsp) Pepper
  • 50g (1) Eggs, hard-cooked, chopped

Instructions

  1. 1

    Peel and dice the potatoes. Cover with water in the pot, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until tender but not mushy, about 10 to 15 minutes. Drain and spread out to cool.

  2. 2

    Finely chop the onions.

  3. 3

    Add the onions, vinegar, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and eggs to the cooled potatoes and mix well.

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Potato Salad

100 servingsBy U.S. War Department on Army Recipes, TM 10-412 (1946)

Ingredients

  • 4 ¾ pounds (7 No. 56 dippers) Potatoes, dehydrated, julienne or diced
  • 14 quarts (14 No. 56 dippers) Water (for potatoes)
  • 6 ounces (¾ No. 56 dipper) Onions, dehydrated
  • 1 ½ quarts (1½ No. 56 dippers) Water (for onions)
  • ¾ quart (¾ No. 56 dipper) Vinegar, 50 grain or
  • ½ No. 56 dipper (½ No. 56 dipper) Mayonnaise or salad dressing
  • 3 ounces (6 mess kit spoons) Salt
  • ½ ounce (2 mess kit spoons) Pepper *
  • 20 eggs Eggs, hard-cooked, chopped

Instructions

  1. 1

    Soak potatoes in water for 20 to 40 minutes. Bring slowly to the boil- ing point (about 45 minutes) in a covered stockpot. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender but not mushy. Drain and spread out on trays to cool.

  2. 2

    Soak onions in water 20 minutes. Drain.

  3. 3

    Add onions, vinegar or mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and eggs (if avail- able) to cooled potatoes and mix well.

Typed from the page scan above. If the two disagree, go with the scan.

What we changed

  • Cut from the book’s 100 servings to 6 servings.
  • Swapped “Potatoes, dehydrated, julienne or diced” for “Potatoes, fresh (unpeeled weight)”.
  • Swapped “Onions, dehydrated” for “Onions, fresh (unpeeled weight)”.
  • Scaled 7 amounts and rounded each to a kitchen measure, like ½ cup.
  • Fixed 4 fractions the scan of the 1946 page misread.
  • Tidied 2 ingredient names.
  • AI rewrote the method for a home kitchen. Tap As printed at the top to compare.

Taken from the log we keep of every edit to this recipe. We left out the line-by-line unit conversions.

Where this recipe comes from

It’s from Army Recipes (TM 10-412), the cookbook the U.S. War Department printed in 1946 for Army mess halls. As a U.S. government work, it’s in the public domain.

See the scanned book →

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