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Gloriously slick and infused with garlic and herbs, tender new potatoes with garlic butter and dill are a wonderfully seasonal side dish. Less faff than mash, more rapid than roasties, better than baked, this potato side dish steals the dinner show.

Too hot for boiled new potatoes? Cool down with my new potato salad recipe with spinach pesto dressing.

Close up of a serving of garlic butter potatoes

After Russia and Ukraine, Poland are the biggest champions of the humble potato! We spent a week between Warsaw and Krakow in May, and it made my heart sing to be surrounded by such familiar fare.

We ate Polish potato pancakes, potato pierogis, potato bread and Polish new potatoes with dill. This particular potato and dill recipe had a generous whack of sour cream and was served with smoky kielbasa sausage and tangy sauerkraut. A true taste of home!

I’ve taken inspiration from that trip and I’m offering a version of that Polish potato dish. I’ve used the same boiled new potatoes, lashings of butter and dill, but added aromatic garlic and dropped the sour cream.

While the creamy Polish version was divine, this new potato recipe makes for a more versatile side to go with any main course from beef Stroganoff to roast leg of lamb.

What are new potatoes?

New potatoes are not a specific variety of potato, like Maris Pipers, Russets and Yukons. ‘New’ refers to the moment they are harvested, only 10-12 weeks after planting and early in the season. The newest of the new can be eaten from May in both the UK and North America, the last of them in July or August.

Early harvesting means new potatoes are small in size and tender to bite. They don’t need peeling as their skins are thin, and their flesh is sweet and firm because the sugar hasn’t turned to starch yet.

All they need is a quick boil and then to be infused with flavour; salt, butter, oil, herbs. Simply delicious! Aggressive interventions like mashing and roasting in oil are never ideal for waxy potatoes like these, but would also ruin the delicate nutty notes of new.

Top down shot of new potatoes with garlic butter on a plate

Important recipe tips and notes

Garlic, butter and herbs suit any type of potato. But the bite of a dill-blessed waxy one is very Eastern European.
Mince or micro-plane the garlic for an even distribution of flavour.
Dill must be fresh. No dill? No dice.

Process shots of potatoes and garlic butter cooking in a pot

What goes with it

While potatoes slathered in butter with garlic and herbs are a fairly common main dish accompaniment, I’m going to lean into what the dill brings: a taste of Eastern Europe. Here’s a few of my main course favourites:

Porcupine Meatballs (tefteli) in a rich sauce perfect for potato dipping.

Cabbage rolls (golubtsi), savoury, saucy and made with a ground beef and pork stuffing mix that liquorice-sweet dill highlights.

Braised chicken (or rabbit) in mushroom sour cream sauce, just like my mum makes.

Meat patties (kotlety) with wild mushroom sauce is a lighter weather dish, like these garlic butter potatoes and Ukrainian summer tomato and cucumber salad.

Storage and leftovers

Store leftover garlic and herb potatoes in an airtight container in the fridge for up to four days. The ready-flavoured potatoes can be repurposed as dill potato salad or thrown into a Russian frikadeller meatball soup.

More side dishes to try

New Potatoes with Garlic Butter and Dill

By Julia Frey of Vikalinka

Prep: 5

Cook: 15

Total: 20

Servings: people

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Gloriously slick and infused with garlic and herbs, tender new potatoes with garlic butter and dill are a wonderfully seasonal side dish.

Ingredients

Instructions

Scrub the potatoes well but do not peel, leave the small ones whole and cut large ones in half if you have any. Boil the potatoes for 10-13 minutes after the boiling point, then drain and steam dry.
To the same pot add the butter, bring the hot potatoes back to the pot, squeeze the garlic clove through a garlic press and add the chopped dill, cover the pot with a lid and allow the butter to melt through the residual heat. After a minute or so, pick up the pot and give the potatoes a good shake while holding onto the lid, so they are evenly coated. Season with salt and serve.