I love to roast potatoes (and lots of other veggies) but I've noticed that sometimes they're wonderfully crispy and other times, not so much. Still delicious, of course, it's a potato, but not so crispy... So I did a little research online. I looked for recipes for roasted potatoes with the word "crispy" in the title. Then I read through them looking for commonalities. And this is how I will make my roasted potatoes from now on.
I feel like I've always had the best luck when I used red potatoes, but during my research, it didn't seem to matter what kind of potatoes are used. I love Yukon Gold Potatoes- their flavor is deliciously buttery, but they also have incredibly thin skins. So, as long as you give them a nice scrub, and cut off the few little yucky spots you find, you never have to peel Yukon Gold Potatoes. Bonus! So I'm going to go with Yukon Golds this time
And, the Yukon Golds that I found at Aldi this week were tiny little guys, so I just quartered them and they were ready to go. Bonus, again!
One of the commonalities I read that will yield crispy potatoes is to parboil them first, drain them, and then beat them up a little bit by shaking them around in the pan.
So after you have them cut to the size you like, throw them in a larger pot than you would think you would need, cover them with water, add a sufficient amount of salt and bring them to a boil. Make sure the pot you use is one that you have a lid for- you'll need that lid a little later. You don't want to overcook them during this boiling process because they're going to cook more in the oven too, it's just a parboil. So, as soon as you can easily insert a knife or fork without feeling them crunch back at you, they're good.
Drain them and return them to the pot you cooked them in. Now, put the lid on it and using potholders to hold everything together, you're going to give the potatoes a nice vigorous shake. Open the lid and check them. If they still look pretty much intact, put the lid back on and give them another vigorous shake. But if you see several little edges of potato broken off, it's perfect. Yes, I know this isn't the best picture, but I think you can see some of the broken edges.
Now, I like to get as few dishes dirty when I cook as possible, so I just leave the potatoes in the pot I cooked them in to get them all seasoned up and ready for the roasting process. But you are welcome to put them into a smaller bowl for this if you prefer. Another thing that was mentioned a few times was to use a mixture of canola and olive oil. I used to always just use olive oil, but if a little canola oil will help with the crisping, I can do that. So add enough oil to just coat the potatoes when stirred. Then add some minced garlic, some onion powder, diced rosemary, pepper and a little cayenne powder. But DO NOT salt them at this point. Salt with pull the moisture out of the potatoes and work against us in our goal of crispy potatoes. You'll salt them when you take them out of the oven.
I also learned from several sources that using a metal pan to roast in, rather than glass pan or any other material will help you achieve crispy potatoes. So, when you've got everything stirred together and nicely coated, you're going to transfer the potatoes to a metal pan for roasting. I like to do this using a slotted spoon or a spatula with holes in it to do the transfer because, even though I didn't read this anywhere, from experience, I think having too much oil in the pan, keeps the potatoes from crisping. So I try to leave as much excess olive oil in the pot as possible. Don't get me wrong, they need to be coated, I'm only talking excess oil. Also, do NOT overcrowd the pan. Your potatoes need to be in a single layer. They can't be stacked on top of each other if you want to end up with a crispy end product. I guess all that hot oven air needs to get all around them in order to do it's thing.
Add the pan to a preheated 425 degree oven. You'll have a total cooking time of about 50 minutes. But you'll need to pull them out and give them a good flip, scraping them off the bottom of the pan when necessary, at 15, 30 and 40 minutes. Based on how large your potato pieces are, you may need to adjust your cooking to time to slightly less or slightly longer, but you should be able to tell that based on their appearance.
When you pull them out of the oven for that last time, give them a nice grind of sea salt over the top.
Aside from the fact that they are just delicious on their own, what's really great about roasted potatoes is how versatile they are. You can dress them up an infinite number of ways. Here are a few of my favorites.
Now, you know I love blue cheese. These potatoes are topped with blue cheese and sour cream (Greek yogurt, actually.) I was going to add a little bit of avocado, but my avocado was bad. :-(
Some restaurants serve "nachos" that they use a potato base for rather than tortilla chips. I think Granite City uses waffle fries and calls them Idaho Nachos... You can do the same thing. Start with the Crispy Roasted Potatoes and add all of your favorite nacho toppings. Here, I added some mashed black beans, Greek yogurt, salsa, jalapeño slices, black olive, green onions and cheddar cheese. Doesn't that sound like tasty nachos??
This one is the most simple, but it's also probably my favorite. Just a sprinkling of the finely grated parmesan cheese and a few green onions. You still get the nice flavor of the potatoes because it isn't overpowered by either of the other ingredients, they all just work together perfectly.
Whether you eat them naked as a delicious side dish or top them with everything in your pantry and call it a meal, trust me, you'll LOVE these Crispy Roasted Potatoes. You might want to start having them every night. And it's okay. Potatoes are vegetables and vegetables are good for you. ;-) Just like if you eat ice cream in another state, it doesn't have any calories... Go for it.
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