The Best Roast Potatoes
The Best Roast Potatoes are a golden, crispy delight with a fluffy, tender interior. Perfectly seasoned and cooked to perfection, they boast a crunchy, crackly exterior that shatters with each bite. Achieved by parboiling to soften the insides and roughing up the edges, these potatoes are then roasted in sizzling hot oil or fat, ensuring an even, caramelized crust. Finished with a sprinkle of salt and fresh herbs, they make the ultimate side dish, pairing beautifully with roasts, hearty stews, or as a satisfying snack on their own. Irresistibly flavorful and perfectly textured, they steal the show every time!
Ingredients
- 1kg medium Sebago potatoes, peeled, quartered (see note)
- 10g butter
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp sea salt flakes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan forced. Grease a large baking tray.
- Place potato in a saucepan of cold water. Bring to the boil. Boil for 5 minutes or until just tender. Drain. Return to pan. Shake over low heat for 30 seconds to create a rough surface on potato. Cool for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, place butter and oil in a small microwave-safe jug. Microwave on HIGH (100%) for 20 seconds or until butter melts and mixture is combined.
- Place potato in a single layer on prepared tray. Brush with butter mixture. Sprinkle with salt. Season with pepper.
Notes
How does this roast potato recipe work?
After peeling our potatoes, we cut them into quarters. This gives them a large surface area to crisp and means the insides aren’t dried out before they become golden, which can sometimes happen when baking smaller pieces. We give our potatoes a cold-water start. If we added them to boiling water the outsides would start disintegrating before the centres are even warm. The drained potatoes are then added back to the hot pan and shaken. This creates a rough, uneven texture that provides lots of little nooks and crannies for the oil and butter mixture to seep into. We use a combination of oil and butter to baste out potatoes as oil has a higher smoke point than butter whereas butter has a richer flavour.What are the best potatoes to use for roasting?
For the perfect roast potatoes, you need to use a potato that is high in starch. Starchy potatoes go by different names depending on where you buy them. The best potatoes to use are coli bans. If not labelled as such they are likely to be sold as brushed potatoes (the ones with the dirt still on them). Roasting waxier red potatoes results in a soft and creamy insides, but the skins deflate upon leaving the oven losing their crunchiness.Should I line the tray with baking paper when roasting potatoes?
Baking paper is a wonderful invention, preventing not only cakes from sticking to pans and is invaluable when baking sticky ribs or chicken wings. When roasting potatoes, however, you get a crisper base when they’re added straight to the greased baking tray. In my experience, placing the potatoes onto baking paper makes them sweat a bit as the paper reduces the conductivity of the tray.What should I serve these perfect roast potatoes with?
Apart from the obvious, roast potatoes go really well with Italian dishes. They soak up the lovely cream sauce in this one pan Italian salmon recipe and are the perfect accompaniment to porchetta and the Italian classic farsumagru (meaning ‘false meat’).Nutrition
Calories: 972kcalCarbohydrates: 40.5gProtein: 3.5gFat: 6.8gSaturated Fat: 2gSodium: 242.5mgPotassium: 664.8mgFiber: 3.6gSugar: 1.8gVitamin A: 20IUVitamin C: 15mgCalcium: 16.8mgIron: 1mg
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