How to Cook the Perfect Baked Potato

Baked potatoes are one-ingredient wonders that require no recipe, no work, and no doctoring as much as be completely scrumptious. Listed here are all the choice, prep, and baking suggestions that make cooking them even simpler—and completely foolproof.

Baked Potato Science

Three issues make a baked potato totally different from a boiled, steamed, or roasted spud: pores and skin, starch, and steam. As a potato bakes, its pores and skin traps in moisture, which is absorbed by the vegetable’s starch granules. Then, because the potato heats up, that moisture turns to steam and expands, inflicting the starch grains to rupture and separating them into the sunshine, fluffy flesh we affiliate with a wonderfully baked potato. (The increasing steam can also be the rationale why you must all the time prick complete potatoes; in any other case, they’ll burst open whereas cooking.)

To scientifically take a look at for good baked potato doneness, use an instant-read thermometer to test the inner temperature has reached 208°F to 211°F. At that temperature, the white starch granules may have absorbed all of the moisture they’ll, then burst and develop into tender.

Suggestions for a Excellent Baked Potato Each Time

These hints take out all of the guesswork and assure fluffy, gentle, flavorful outcomes.

1. Choose the Proper Potato

The upper the starch content material, the fluffier the potato, so giant, high-starch russet (Idaho) or Yukon Gold potatoes are your finest wager. Waxy potatoes comparable to red-skinned and fingerlings are decrease in starch and work finest in recipes the place you need the flesh to stay agency and moist.

Select medium to giant potatoes with unblemished skins and no indicators of cuts, sprouts, or eyes. When baking a number of potatoes at a time, choose spuds which are related in measurement so they may cook dinner in the identical time.

2. Don’t Skip on Prep

Give the entire potatoes a superb scrub underneath working water, then dry them with a dish towel. Pierce the potatoes throughout with a fork. The drying step eliminates extra moisture and the pricked holes let steam escape so the spuds received’t burst open as they bake.

3. Use an Oven That’s Sizzling (However Not Too Sizzling)

Potato baking temperatures vary from 350˚ to 450˚F. The candy spot appears to be at 400˚F, a temperature that cooks the potato throughout and crisps the pores and skin with out singeing it. That mentioned, you don’t have to strictly adhere to a sure temperature each time you bake a potato. In case you’re baking a casserole for an hour at 375˚F, you possibly can simply put a couple of potatoes within the oven alongside. They might take a bit of longer to cook dinner, however will nonetheless be scrumptious.

4. Verify for Doneness

Baking potatoes are available in many alternative sizes and styles, so it’s all the time finest to ensure a baked potato is cooked throughout earlier than serving. Merely slide the tip of a knife or skewer into the thickest a part of the potato. If it pierces the middle simply and meets no resistance, your baked beauties are able to serve. You can too use an instant-read thermometer; inserted into the middle of the potato, the temperature ought to learn 208-211˚F.

Ought to You Wrap Baked Potatoes in Foil?

Wrapping potatoes in foil is critical when grilling them as a result of the direct warmth can char their skins. In any other case, it’s optionally available and a matter of selection. Foil will stop potatoes from drying out whereas they’re saved heat – one of many causes eating places serve their baked potatoes in foil. however it can additionally depart the pores and skin tender and moist, not crispy.

Is a Skewer Mandatory?

Threading a steel skewer via the potato isn’t important, however it helps switch warmth to the middle so it can cook dinner extra shortly.

Cooking Strategies

Twenty-first-century kitchens provide so many choices for baking potatoes, from the traditional oven technique to small equipment choices like multicookers, gradual cookers, and air fryers.

Oven

The traditional baked-potato technique delivers fluffy potato texture and crispy pores and skin.

Directions: Place scrubbed, pricked potatoes instantly on the rack of a preheated 400˚F oven or toaster oven. Bake 60 to 90 minutes, or till simply pierced with a knife tip, fork, or skewer.

Microwave

The uber-convenient technique can yield a creamy cooked potato for one in simply 10 minutes. Directions: Microwave 1 scrubbed, pricked potato 7 minutes on excessive energy. Rigorously flip the potato over, and microwave 2 to three minutes extra, or till simply pierced with a knife tip, fork, or skewer. Tip: For fluffier flesh and crispier pores and skin, you can even take the potato out of the microwave after 7 minutes and end it in a 400˚F oven for quarter-hour.

Instantaneous Pot/Multicooker

Technically, multicookers steam, slightly than bake, potatoes, however they’re helpful while you’d wish to shortly cook dinner a family-size batch of spuds, and so they can maintain cooked potatoes heat with out drying them out. Use this technique while you’d wish to cook dinner a family-size batch of potatoes in a much less time than conventional baking.

Directions: Pour 1½ cups water into the underside of a multicooker and set a steaming rack over prime. Organize 4 to five scrubbed, pricked potatoes in a single layer on the rack, seal, and cook dinner on excessive energy for quarter-hour (18 minutes if potatoes are extra-large). Let steam launch naturally.

Sluggish Cooker

Sluggish cookers provide set-it-and-forget-it ease and a solution to unencumber the oven for different recipes. The low, gradual warmth can also be a wonderful solution to intensify the style of the pure sugars in candy potatoes.

Directions: Place 4 to five scrubbed, pierced potatoes in a single layer in a gradual cooker, and cook dinner on excessive energy 8 hours or till simply pierced with a knife tip, fork, or skewer.

Air Fryer

For crispy pores and skin and to make sure even cooking of smaller potatoes, attempt baking your potato in an air fryer.

Directions: Cook dinner scrubbed, pierced complete potatoes 40 to 50 minutes at 400˚F, or till simply pierced with a knife tip, fork, or skewer.

Out of doors Grill

Make room for a couple of potatoes on the grill and also you’ll have a piping scorching facet dish prepared by the point everybody sits right down to eat. Grilling provides potatoes a scrumptious smoky taste and a creamy-fluffy texture, because of the foil wrapping, which holds in moisture.

Directions: Wrap scrubbed, pierced potatoes in foil, and grill 1 hour, or till simply pierced with a knife tip, fork, or skewer. For crispy pores and skin, unwrap the potatoes and grill 5 minutes earlier than serving.

Methods to Bake Candy Potatoes

All of the methods, temperatures, and occasions listed above can be utilized to bake candy potatoes. Candy potatoes are greater in moisture and decrease in starch than white potatoes, so their texture will likely be barely totally different. They may stay creamy and tender when baked slightly than flip dry and fluffy. You should definitely take a look at them for doneness the identical method you’d take a look at white potatoes.

Our Favourite Baked Potato Recipes

You’ll be able to pair a baked potato with nearly any filling and switch it right into a meal. Listed here are some scrumptious concepts from Forks Over Knives: 40+ Spectacular Spud Recipes to Supercharge Your Day!