Instant Pot Potato Salad with Magical Bacon Superpowers

What, doesn’t your bacon have magical superpowers? Or maybe it’s more accurate to call it what it is: addictive. It’s a good thing they don’t hold BPSAA (bacon potato salad addicts anonymous) meetings, because I’d be at the top of the list, and I just plain don’t have time for that. I’m too busy stuffing my face with potato salad straight outta the fridge at 11pm before bed. Now, I’ll tell you honestly: I’ve always been a sucker for the salty or savoury foods. Sweets tempt me sometimes (I take chocolate cake very seriously when I’m pregnant, for example) but my first love is salty/tangy/greasy/savoury any day of the week. And this potato salad hits the spot like none other in my entire potato-salad-eating career thus far. I may have eaten the entire potluck-sized bowlful of this stuff on my own in 48 hours. Okay, yes. Yes, I totally did. And that was with some self-restraint. Regular potato salads have come into my life and it was fine, but in the words of Simon Cowell, “Was it good? Yes. Will I remember you tomorrow? No.” This one, though. I finished off the last of it this morning and it made me legitimately sad. What’s so great about this particular version of potato salad, you ask? There are a million iterations of potato salad out there, you remind me. And isn’t this just yet-another version of the same? No, this one is better, and I’ll tell you why. Let’s break it down: The potatoes are eggs and cooked to perfection in the instant pot (at the same time!) in just 4 minutes. That in and of itself doesn’t make it taste better, of course, but it does make this recipe even more awesome than it would otherwise be. The dressing is simple, yet contains only whole food ingredients (a clean-ingredient store-bought mayonnaise and maple syrup for a touch of natural sweetness are my favourite examples). Better quality  ingredients always make a finished dish taste better. The dressing contains bacon grease (because wasting bacon magic is a sin), and then the cooked bacon itself is crumbled and mixed into the salad in addition. When eating this potato salad you’ll get a creamy bite with a kick of two different kinds of fresh onion mixed with the tartness of the dressing, and then you’ll get the soft potato mixed with a hint of sweet from an apple chunk. The bacon grease lends a subtle bacon-flavour to every bite, and the whole thing just comes together to make sweet, sweet stuff-your-face magic. P.S. I wrote this entire post while humming Etta James’ “At Last” to myself. “At lasssst, my love has come along… my loneliness is overrrrr…” (No, I’m not a super-dramatic person at all – why do you ask?) If you make it and snap a pic, be sure to tag me on instagram with @redandhoney and #redandhoneyrecipes so I can see the fruits of your labour! Looking for more posts like this one? Check these out:

• 19 Easy (Real Food) Instant Pot Recipes for Hesitant Beginners
• 4 Things I Learned About My Instant Pot in the First 6 Months