16 Tricks To Make Potatoes Extra Crispy

There are few culinary disappointments more heartbreaking than biting into what one assumes will be a crunchy, crispy potato and finding it to be chewy or tough. While I can't claim that my restaurant management career and countless hours spent behind the stove have been the result of a personal oath to prevent anyone experiencing this disappointment ever again, my experience has certainly taught me a few things I didn't know about potatoes.

Of course, I also picked up a trick (or 16) on how to make potatoes extra crispy, including picking the best spuds for the job, professional-level prep work, culinary hacks, and the best cooking techniques. The following advice is the culmination of experience ranging from slinging Sunday roasts in British pubs to silver-serving fondant potatoes in fine-dining establishments. So tuck into the tips below and you'll soon be producing nothing but the crispiest, tastiest potatoes you've ever tasted.

If you've ever baked a potato before, you'll know that it takes a long time for the inside to cook fully — often up to an hour for a decent sized spud. This can present problems when we're trying to get the outside nice and crispy with a high heat. The issue is that by the time the exterior hits our desired level of crispiness, the inside of the potato is a ways off from being done, meaning it'll be hard and unappealing at best, and still raw at worst.

Fortunately, the solution is simple. By parboiling — a portmanteau of partial boiling — we can give the interior of the potatoes a head start on the cooking process. The key is to start with your peeled potatoes in a saucepan of cold, salted water, as this will help them cook evenly and prevent the exteriors from becoming over-cooked and sticking together. Once the water begins to boil, turn down the heat and let the potatoes simmer until the insides are tender enough to push a fork into without them falling apart.

We've already established that producing something with a crispy outside and a fluffy inside takes a little extra work, and one of the most important factors isn't even in the cooking. To guarantee every bite is consistent, it's crucial that each piece of potato is as uniformly sized as possible.

The actual size you go with isn't too much of an issue, just that it's consistent throughout; although, how big or small you make the pieces will impact the cooking times and final outcome. Smaller pieces won't need parboiling for as long and will have a similar texture throughout. Larger pieces will offer a much more interesting contrast between the crispy shell and the soft middle, and parboiling is essential to make sure they're cooked all the way through. Either is fine, but if you have a combination of sizes, you're going to have to choose between having the smaller pieces overdone or the larger pieces undercooked.

As a Brit, there are few dishes as iconic as the Sunday roast dinner. A roast without crispy potatoes is sacrilege, which is why we've been using this next trick to great effect since any of us can remember.

We've already touched upon how the key to crispy potatoes is increasing the surface area of the pieces: This is so the exterior can absorb more fat which in turn enhances the crispiness. Once the potatoes have been parboiled, we then rough them up a bit. You can do this by putting the pieces into a dry saucepan and using a wooden spoon to stir them around, but there's a better tool for the job. Pop your dry potatoes into a sieve or colander — preferably one made of metal — and give them a good old shakedown. This will finely grate the outsides of the potatoes and create a rough surface that will crisp up much better than a smooth one.

If you're aiming to make the crispiest potatoes, you won't get anywhere without thinking about your fat. There are a few different options to choose from depending on your flavor preferences, with some being easier than others.

The simplest fat to use is oil, and while there are plenty of different cooking oils you can try, your best bet is to stick to the basics that won't imbue your potatoes with flavors that don't match up. Olive oil is a solid pick but be wary of its smoke point; if you're cooking at higher temperatures, you might want to opt for vegetable oil instead. However, for the crispiest potatoes with a subtle savory flavor boost, goose or duck fat are excellent choices — the former being slightly gamier and more intense and the latter being mellower and slightly sweeter. If you really want to go all out, try using the confit method — meaning to slow cook in fat — by combining garlic and rosemary in beef tallow and using it to roast your potatoes until they're golden brown.

However you decide to cook your potatoes, overcrowding the baking dish, frying pan, or air fryer basket is going to reduce their crispy potential. The first issue you might face is having the pieces become stuck together as they cook, making them more likely to fall apart when you try to separate them.

Overcrowding also restricts airflow, so the potatoes aren't going to cook uniformly throughout or crisp evenly on the surface. This can leave you with uncooked centers or soft patches on the outsides. If you need to cook large batches of potatoes, your best bet is to use an oven to roast them and double up on the baking trays. Just make sure to swap the tray positions halfway through to ensure all of the potato pieces are evenly cooked and have the chance to crisp up under the direct heat of the oven element.

Out of all the crispy potato recipes I've tried, my personal favorite is the smash-and-fry method. It's relatively quick and extremely simple, and I've yet to find a better method for getting the optimum crust on a spud.

For starters, you'll want a potato variety that's relatively small and falls somewhere in the middle of the starchy/waxy scale, like the aforementioned Yukon Golds. Parboil them until you can insert a fork all the way through with some resistance, drain and dry them, then use a potato masher or the flat of a kitchen knife to lightly squash them until they're about ½ inch thick. Melt some butter in a frying pan with olive oil, sliced garlic, and a few sprigs of rosemary. Fry your smashed potatoes at medium heat for around 20 minutes, flipping them halfway through and seasoning them with salt and pepper. Et voilà — decadently crispy, bite-sized potatoes that you won't be able to get enough of.

If you're managing to get the insides of your potatoes just the way you like them yet you're struggling to get the exterior crispiness just right, your oven likely has an oft overlooked feature that holds the answer. Most modern ovens have a broiler, and it's the number one way to boost crispiness after your food is done cooking.

A broiler is simply a heating element at the top of the oven that applies intense, direct heat to the food you place beneath it. There are a few common mistakes first-timers make when cooking with a broiler, but if you know how to avoid these, it will become an invaluable tool in your culinary arsenal. Once your potatoes are cooked on the inside, you can switch your oven to the broiler setting and raise the pan up to a higher rack so it's closer to the heat source. Make sure to keep a close eye on your potatoes as broilers work their magic quickly, and you'll find it takes very little time to boost the browning on their surface and crisp up the exterior texture.

Finally, if your potato pieces are small enough that they don't require parboiling, there's another technique that's worth trying out. The ice water hack for ultra-crispy roast potatoes will increase your prep time, but it's well worth the additional effort.

Once you've chopped your potatoes up into bite-sized pieces, toss them into a bowl of ice water and leave them to soak for a couple of hours. The cold water will draw the starches in the potato to the surface which will help them cook more evenly. It'll also cool down the potato pieces so that the insides take a little longer to cook than the outsides, creating a better textural contrast between the crispy skin and the fluffy center. As long as the potato slices are fully submerged in the water, they'll also be protected from oxidation. This means you don't have to worry about them turning that unappealing shade of brown that's common with peeled potatoes that have been left out too long before cooking.