Can You Use Frozen Onion in Potato Salad?

I love potato salad – eating most of it as a quick meal or side dish in the summer – but when you’re cooking for one it’s not convenient to buy onions and use them before they get soft – so frozen onions can be a real boon.  There’s no prep if you want to slice or chop and freeze onions yourself, white onions or red onions, or you can simply pick up a bag of frozen/chopped onions from supermarkets.

When I make potato salad I will most often use frozen onions as I simply have to grab as much, or as little as I want!

Using frozen onion in a potato salad can make this a real “store cupboard dish” as you can use tinned potatoes, mayo or salad cream from a jar, dried herbs (mixed herbs, oregano or herbes de provence) and frozen onions!  Something you can literally whip up without needing fresh ingredients to have been planned and bought!  This is a “no cooking required” recipe too, something that’s great in the summer or if your appliances have broken!

Do You Need to Defrost Frozen Onion for a Potato Salad?

If you’re making the potato salad to eat immediately, you can defrost it quickly by pouring some boiling water over the frozen onions, waiting 10-15 seconds, then draining that away and dunking the onion into very cold water to cool down again – then drain it and dry it off with a piece of kitchen towel, then just add it to your potato mix.

If you’re making your potato salad ahead of when you’ll eat it, then there’s no need to defrost the onion at all – it’ll defrost naturally – just add it to your potato mix, then pop your potato salad into a lidded container in the fridge for when you want it.  Perfect to make ahead for a picnic, party or BBQ.  Potato salad, in my opinion, always tastes better the day after it’s made!