Top 10 salad potatoes | gardenersworld.com

Plant features

Salad potatoes come in many shapes, sizes and colours. They're well worth growing, as they're such a versatile crop - delicious served hot with a knob of butter, or combined with any number of ingredients in a potato salad. All salad potatoes share a firm, waxy texture and many have an intense, nutty flavour.

For many years the most common salad potato was 'Jersey Royal' - revered by the greengrocer as the herald of spring. With today's interest in 'grow your own', many more varieties are on offer to growers, with mail-order specialists offering the widest selection.

Salad potatoes are a great source of energy, fibre, potassium and vitamin B. Although potatoes don’t count towards your five a day, they are fat free and nutritious. Skin colour doesn't affect the taste of the potato, but the skin does add to the flavour, so don't peel potatoes unless you have to. Another reason to keep the skin is that it contains high levels of nutrients.

To help you decide which varieties to grow, we've chosen our Top 10 salad potatoes for flavour, below.

'Nicola' (second early)

This is our top tasting salad potato, without a doubt. It has great depth of flavour and copes better than many other varieties if growing conditions are less than ideal.

'Heather' (second early)

Purple skin that fades when cooked. Good creamy white flesh with a deep flavour.

'Maris Peer' (second early)

A dense, heavy, waxy texture with a classic, slightly sweet taste. Heavy yield, easy to grow.

'Pink Duke of York' (first early)

White flesh and an earthy taste. Not as waxy as some but superb eaten cold.

'Ratte' (maincrop)

Distinctive long shape, nutty and creamy, suitable for roasting and boiling. Waxy, firm and easy to grow.

'Red Duke of York' (first early)

Pink skin survives cooking. Less waxy than others, but holds together well. Superb flavour, easy to grow.

'Lady Christi' (first early)

Firm texture, waxy flesh. Very quick growing, trouble-free and produces a good yield of tubers.

'Charlotte' (second early)

One of the most popular, with a large, oval shape. Thin skin and a hint of sweetness in the flesh, easy to grow.

'Ulster Classic' (first early)

All our tasters liked this nutty heritage potato, one of our chef’s favourites. Disease-resistant, good yield.

'Anya' (second early)

Pleasant knobbly, oval shape. Nutty flavour, good firm flesh, very waxy and smooth texture.

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Talkback: Top 10 salad potatoes for flavour

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KarenBruton 15/02/2013 at 11:46

I'm so disappointed that you've not included Juliette in your top 10. I think it must rank as the most tasty and best textured potato there is - but maybe that's just personal taste. Was it in the running at all? Did something else let it down from making the top 10?