This Is Our Secret to Perfect Baked Potatoes (2024)

FAQs

Should I put oil on potatoes before baking? ›

A: Adding oil to potatoes before baking is perfectly fine, just a personal preference. Without oil the Idaho russet skin bakes up crispy, with oil the skin will carry a lot of the flavor of the oil so some people have a preference for using olive oil or peanut oil.

We recommend baking potatoes at 400 degrees F for about an hour. Smaller spuds might take a little less time, while larger baking potatoes over 1 pound might take a little more. For a fully baked Idaho Russet Burbank, the internal temperature should be right at 210 degrees F.

Prior to cooking, the potatoes should be scrubbed clean of any dirt, rinsed, and dried. I use vegetable oil to rub the potatoes, which helps the skin crisp up nicely. You can use olive oil if you prefer.

For this experiment, we washed two potatoes and poked holes with a fork in one of them, leaving the other unpoked. The potatoes were then placed in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and they each took one hour to fully bake. Overall, we did not detect any difference between the poked and unpoked potatoes.

Soaking potatoes in water helps remove excess starch. Excess starch can inhibit the potatoes from cooking evenly as well as creating a gummy or sticky texture on the outside of your potatoes. Cold water is used because hot water would react with the starch activating it, making it harder to separate from the potatoes.

Since most restaurants skip the foil in order to achieve a perfect oven-baked finish, you should, too. Sans the foil, chefs typically coat the outside of the potatoes with some olive oil.

Is it better to bake potatoes with or without foil? That depends on if you want soft skins or crispy skins. Wrapping a potato in aluminum foil before baking it will essentially steam the potato and the end result will be soft skin. Baking the potato on a sheet pan without foil will result in a crispier skin.

Visual signs: The potato skin will start to wrinkle when over cooked. The potato, when wrapped in foil or placed on the bottom of a pan will have a dark brown spot on the bottom, a sure sign of over cooking. Foil traps the moisture in the potato causing the skin to be wet and the inside flavorless or gummy.

Brush with butter (or oil).

Using a pastry brush, brush the outside of the potato with melted butter or olive oil until it is completely coated on all sides. Sprinkle the potato with a generous pinch of Kosher salt, and place the potato back on the baking sheet reverse-side-up, so that it can cook evenly on both sides.

Do you wrap potatoes in foil to bake? ›

NEVER BAKE POTATOES IN FOIL.

Foil wraps will not decrease baking time, but will result in a soggy potato interior with wet skin. Wrapping a baked potato in foil after it has been baked will allow you to hold up to 45 minutes, but the best method for holding a baked potato is in a bread warming drawer.

Little breaks in the skin occur, inviting bacteria -and especially if kept wrapped will raise the temperature, which will only accelerate this potentially harmful environment. Rather than chance any health problems in an attempt to save prep time later on, it's best to wash and prepare potatoes just prior to cooking.

Wendy's baked potatoes are wrapped in foil and baked in a convection oven for one hour. These logistics present challenges that other chains, besides the occasional Arby's, have opted out of. Wendy's is the only fast food restaurant to offer a baked potato nationwide.

Technology may have changed since the nineteenth century, but the basic practice hasn't. According to Restaurant Ninjas, restaurants that serve baked potatoes bake their potatoes in advance and keep them in warming equipment. Moreover, there is a constant cycle of new potatoes going out to ensure the food is fresh.

It's simple: Pan-fry with cooking oil(s), not butter. As much as we love butter, it burns too quickly over high heat, which is necessary for optimal crispiness. While olive oil does taste great with potatoes, it also has a lower smoking point.

A: This sure sounds a lot like potatoes that have been stored too long, in too cold of an environment before cooking. When potatoes are held below 41°F for too long a period, the starches convert to sugar and it changes the cooking chemistry.

Size and Cut: The size and cut of the potato pieces can also affect their cooking time. Smaller pieces will cook faster and become softer than larger ones. If the potato cubes were too large or unevenly cut, this might result in some pieces remaining crunchy.

Soak the cut potatoes in cold, salted water for 10 minutes. Drain and thoroughly pat to dry. Pour a 1/4 cup of peanut oil (or another high temperature oil) into a large, heavy cast iron or non-stick pan over high heat, and add the cut potatoes in batches.