The Secret To Restaurant-Worthy Baked Potatoes At Home

From super-spendy cuts of Kobe beef to eye-popping bottles of imported wine, there's a reason why expensive steakhouses like Morton's and Ruth's Chris are often reserved for special occasions. While you can recreate a similar experience at home with enough effort, it's not your imagination if you still think that baked potatoes at a restaurant are a little bit fluffier and tastier than the spuds you make in your own kitchen. We spoke to K.C. Gulbro, Owner of FoxFire steakhouse in Geneva, Illinois, for the insider scoop on making a restaurant-worthy baked potato that feels extra luxurious.

The secret, Gulbro says, is to treat them a little bit like a piece of meat: "A nice trick for baked potatoes is adding a little brine time to your spuds before putting them in the oven," said the pro chef. That's right, the same technique that keeps Thanksgiving turkey tender, and pork chops or chicken breasts extra juicy, works great with potatoes, too. As a bonus, you don't need to brine them for very long to get the benefits. All you need is a salty liquid solution and a little extra prep, and you can have steakhouse-worthy baked spuds in no time.

Wet-brining, in general, is a super easy technique. All it really entails is dipping or soaking something in a salty solution. The brining liquid is absorbed inside the potatoes, trapping water within the cells. The solution will give your spuds "additional moisture that will help steam the inside of the potatoes and make them extra fluffy inside," says K.C. Gulbro.

Salt also deeply seasons the potato skin as the spuds soak, and helps it to brown better in the oven. When your brined potato is cooked, you'll get a super moist interior, and a salty, crispy skin — basically, the best baked potato of your life.

Unlike brining meat, potatoes only need a quick dip in the brine to reap the benefits. Simply prick your potatoes all around with a fork, and then dip them in a standard brine of about 1 tablespoon of kosher salt dissolved in one cup of water. After the super quick bath, bake your potatoes in a 350 degrees Fahrenheit oven until they're soft inside yet crisp outside, and then they're ready to serve. The extra step is so simple, and the payoff is so tasty, that you'll wonder how you ever baked potatoes without brining first.