This green bean potato salad with anchovy dressing has all your favourite fresh Italian flavours from baby potatoes, tender beans, cherry tomatoes, olives, and capers. Tossed in a piquant anchovy dressing, this hearty potato salad makes an ideal potluck offering or side dish.
What's summer without a potato salad or two, or three? Potato salads are a delicious accompaniment to casual meals, burger nights, or potluck dinners. They're must-have picnic fare!
I have a couple of favourite mayo-free potato salad recipes besides this Green Bean Potato Salad. I alternate between this Italian Potato Salad with Pickled Shallots (with lots of mustardy goodness!) or this light and lemony Springtime Potato Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing!
❤️ Why you'll love this green bean potato salad recipe
- It's a welcome change from traditional potato salad made with mayonnaise. Potato salads with vinaigrette have a lighter taste than those made with mayo.
- This Green Bean Potato Salad with Anchovy Dressing is NOT short on flavour! Soft baby potatoes and tender green beans may seem a little ho-hum, but when they're seasoned with a piquant anchovy dressing and tossed with sweet cherry tomatoes and olives, they take on a new role!
- So convenient! You can prepare all the parts of this salad ahead of time, even the day before. Don't you love make-ahead dishes?
🛒 Ingredients and substitutions
You'll find a complete list of ingredients with amounts in the recipe card below. But before we get to the full potato salad recipe, here are a few notes about some of the key ingredients.
- potatoes: baby potatoes (any colour) are the best potatoes to use in this recipe as they hold their shape, and cook evenly. There's no need to remove their skins. You could also use Yukon Gold potatoes.
- green beans: this potato salad with green beans will only be as good as the green beans you use. Look for fresh, crisp, tender green beans in season, or use packaged haricots verts.
- tomatoes: any variety of small tomatoes, like cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes is best in this salad.
- hard-cooked eggs: traditional in potato salad!
- green Italian olives add lots of flavour.
- basil: a few fresh basil leaves, torn or chiffonade cut tossed in just before serving add an appetizing aroma.
- anchovy dressing: anchovy paste or mashed canned anchovy fillets, garlic, lemon juice and zest, capers and olive oil combine to make a pungent dressing that brings all the salad flavours together.
🔪 Instructions
Here's an overview of what you'll do to make this green bean potato salad recipe perfectly. You'll find complete instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post.
- First, boil the potatoes. Place the whole potatoes and a teaspoon of sea salt in a Dutch oven or large pot and add enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, then simmer until potatoes are almost, but not quite, fork-tender.
- While they're cooking, wash and trim the green beans, cutting them into lengths about 1 ½ to 2 inches. Add the beans to the potatoes and cook for about 4 minutes or until both the beans and the potatoes are fork-tender. Don't overcook.
- Remove from the heat, drain and allow the potatoes and beans to cool for about an hour. At this point, you could refrigerate them overnight if you want to make parts of this salad ahead of time.
- Cook the eggs. (see my notes below for different ways to hard-cook eggs.)
- While the potatoes and beans are cooling, make the anchovy dressing. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a small jar with a screw lid and shake.
- When you're ready to assemble the salad, first add the potatoes and beans to a large bowl. Toss with half the dressing.
- Next add the tomatoes, hard-cooked eggs, sliced olives and basil leaves. Toss gently with the remaining dressing and add freshly ground pepper and salt.
🔁 Possible Variations
If you don't like anchovies, or you want to keep this salad vegan, I suggest you use the mustard dressing in this Italian Potato Salad with Pickled Shallots instead.
👍🏼 Helpful Tips
Two ways to cook hard-cooked eggs
I like to use my Instant Pot. For hard-boiled eggs, I set it for 4 minutes, give it a 5-minute natural release, then a quick release. Transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water to cool. Hard-boiled eggs cooked in an Instant Pot are SO easy to peel!
You can also make hard-cooked eggs on the stovetop. Place the eggs in a small saucepan and cover with cool water.
Bring the water to a boil, then turn the heat off and let the eggs sit for 11-12 minutes. Drain and transfer to a bowl of ice water, then remove the shells once they're cool.
How to boil potatoes for potato salad
Start the potatoes in cold water and leave them whole. Make sure to add salt to the water.
If you start them in boiling water, the outside will be overcooked and spongy and the inside may not be fully cooked. Simmer gently and be careful not to overcook.
When done, the potatoes should be fork-tender, but not mushy.
🍽 Serving Suggestions
Potato salad is a favourite dish for casual summer meals. Serve it as a side dish with
- Grilled Rosemary Mustard Chicken Kabobs
- Greek Lemon Chicken Kabobs
- Greek Chicken Burgers with Spinach and Feta
- or your favourite plant-based burgers.
Add a pitcher of Peach Ginger Iced Green Tea, Strawberry Watermelon Sangria Slushie, or Grilled Pineapple Strawberry Sangria for your thirsty friends! Or choose a drink from my list of mocktails and cocktails.
⏰ Storage Instructions
To store: Store leftover potato salad in a covered container in the fridge for 3 to 4 days.
🗒 More recipes for salads and dressings
When you make this Italian potato and green bean salad recipe, please leave a comment and a rating below. I love hearing from you! Thanks in advance. Subscribe to my newsletter and receive new recipes delivered straight to your inbox once a week.
📖 Recipe
Green Bean Potato Salad with Anchovy Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds baby potatoes, whole
- 8 oz. green beans, cut into 1" to 2" pieces
- 2 large eggs, hard-cooked and quartered
- 1 cup small tomatoes, like cherry or grape tomatoes
- ⅓ cup pitted green Italian olives, sliced
- 1 handful fresh basil leaves, chiffonade sliced
Anchovy Dressing
- 1 large lemon
- 1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and drained
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons anchovy paste, or 3 anchovy fillets, mashed
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ⅓ cup olive oil, extra virgin
Instructions
- First, boil the potatoes. Place the whole potatoes and a teaspoon of salt in a Dutch oven or large pot with a lid and add enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, then simmer until potatoes are almost, but not quite, fork-tender.
- While they're cooking, wash and trim the green beans, cutting them into lengths about 1 ½ to 2 inches.
- Add the beans to the potatoes and cook for about 4 minutes or until both the beans and the potatoes are fork-tender. Don't overcook or the potatoes will lose their shape.
- Remove from the heat, drain and allow the potatoes and beans to cool for about an hour. At this point, you could refrigerate them overnight if you want to make parts of this salad ahead of time.
- Hard boil the eggs. (see my notes in the post for different ways to hard-cook eggs.)
- While the potatoes and beans are cooling, make the anchovy dressing. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a small jar with a screw lid and shake.
- When you're ready to assemble the salad, slice the potatoes in half or quarters so they are bite-sized. Add the potatoes and beans to a large bowl. Toss with half the anchovy dressing.
- Next add the tomatoes, hard-cooked eggs, sliced olives and basil leaves. Toss gently with the remaining anchovy dressing and add freshly ground pepper and sea salt to taste. Refrigerate until serving time.
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