Grocery stores tend to use 5 and 10 pound bags of potatoes as ‘loss leaders’ near the holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. They figure everyone is making mashed potatoes or potato salad, and try to lure them into their store to purchase everything else they need for their feast. I regularly find a bag of potatoes on sale at this time for .99 or 1.29 or some other super cheap price. A 10-lb bag of potatoes that you got for a dollar or two can last a long time. You can also whip up some options below and use your freezer.
Baked Potatoes
The classic baked potato. It’s just so good dripping in butter and loaded with other tasty toppings. Luckily, its pretty easy to cook, too.
Wash potatoes and remove any ‘eyes’ or spoiled spots with a paring knife. Poke multiple holes in the potato with a fork. If you forget this step, they will explode in the oven. Ask me how I know … Bake at 400* for 40 minutes. Just set them right on the rack.
After 40 minutes, open the oven and give each potato a little squeeze. If they are still hard, they need to cook more. When they feel soft, they are ready to go. I try to get potatoes of the same size so they all cook at about the same time. More often than not, I have a random small potato that is ready first and a random big one that takes forever to cook. For the monster baked potatoes that we like, it could take up to 1 1/2 hours to cook thoroughly.
A word about foil: You could wrap your potatoes in foil. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. When wrapped in foil, potatoes can stay hot for.ev.er. If I have multiple things to go in the oven, I wrap the potatoes in foil and cook them first. They will stay hot outside of the oven while I cook everything else. However, the foil prevents the skin from getting nice and crispy so there is a trade-off.
Toppings:
The best thing about eating a baked potato is that you can top a baked potato with just about anything, including:
- Butter
- Sour cream
- Bacon
- Green onions or chives
- Cheese, typically cheddar, but any kind really
- Steamed broccoli with melted cheese
- Chili with melted cheese
- Leftover pork roast and BBQ sauce (this would also be good on a baked sweet potato)
- Salsa – people do this and swear by it. Not my thing, but you may like it
- Leftover sautéed mushrooms or, better yet, leftover stuffed mushrooms
- Homemade queso dip
- Creamed spinach (if you have fresh spinach that is about to go bad, wash it. Sautee it in butter with a little bit of onion. Add cream, milk, parm, cream cheese or any combination thereof. Done. Pour oven baked potato.)
- Leftover spinach-artichoke dip. Recipe here.
Twice Baked
If you are in the mood for twice baked, you are half-way there. Bake your potatoes, like above. When they are done, you need to move quickly. Don’t cool the potatoes, just hold them in your hand with a pot holder. Split the potato in half and scoop out the insides with a cereal spoon. Leave about 1/4″ of potato in the shell so it still has some structure and doesn’t fall apart.
I typically place a stick of butter in a bowl and then dump the scooped potato in the bowl as I go. When all my potatoes are scooped, I place the shells on a cookie sheet. Add sour cream, salt, pepper, and more butter to the bowl and mash the part that you scooped out. Basically, you are making mashed potatoes.
I use an ice cream scooper to re-fill the shells with the mashed potato mixture and then I cover each with shredded cheese. I typically use my hand to press the cheese into the mashed potatoes so it all stay together.
At this point, you can cook for 20 minutes or so at 350* or you can freeze. Frankly, you may as well make extra and do both!
Potato Skins
Potato skins are similar to twice-baked. You still split and scoop baked potatoes but then it takes a turn. You make the mashed potatoes, but you don’t need them. Typically, I have a kid just eat them right then and there.
Instead, you take the shells and dip them into a shallow bowl of melted butter. Place on a cookie sheet scoop side facing up. Sprinkle with salt and bake at 400* for 6 minutes. Remove from oven, flip over with tongs, sprinkle with more salt and bake another 6 minutes or so.
Remove from oven. At this point, you can cool and put in fridge or freezer until you are ready to use. When you want to eat them, defrost, fill with cheese and bake until melted. You could also do from frozen, but they might require a few minutes in the oven without cheese, followed by a few more minutes with cheese. So, so good.
Mashed Potatoes
My mashed potato recipe is pretty basic. Peel and cut your potatoes into similarly-sized chunks. Boil until you can easily pierce with a fork. Drain and add:
- Butter (lots, and then more!)
- Salt (potatoes can handle a lot of salt!)
- Dairy (I rotate between sour cream and cream cheese depending on which I have on hand)
After draining the potatoes, I dump everything back into the pot with the above ingredients and let it sit on the counter covered for a few. Once things have melted, I mash with a potato masher and taste. If you can’t taste the butter, add more. Adjust the salt, if needed.
While mashed potatoes are fine on their own, they are also fantastic on top of shepard’s pie (recipe coming soon) or as a base for chicken a la king. Think outside of the (potato) bag.
Potato Soup
My potato soup recipe is made from the above mashed potatoes. You can see it here.
Garlic Potatoes
Traditionally, garlic potatoes are wrapped in fold twice thrown on the BBQ. While that’s convenient, we stopped doing that because we could never time everything to be ready at the same time. This recipe is an ‘eyeball’ recipe. You can make more or less, depending on how many people you are feeding or how many potatoes you have, and ‘eyeball’ everything.
- Brown, Russet potatoes, diced into 1- to 2-inch chunks
- onions, diced (I just use whatever leftover bit of onion I have in the fridge)
- butter — ALOT! — I use about 8 TB (1 stick) for a 13 x 9 pan potatoes
- oregano (you can sub Italian seasoning)
- garlic powder, sprinkle liberally
- salt or Lawrey’s seasoning salt (I don’t overdo it here. I add more after its done cooking)
- black pepper
Place in a glass pan, cover tightly with foil, and bake at 350* for 30 minutes. Carefully remove foil, stir, and bake for 15-30 more minutes, until the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork.
I have also made this recipe without onions. I cooked just the potatoes and then added pre-cooked bacon and shredded cheese for the last several minutes. Seriously good stuff! Mix equal amounts of sour cream and Ranch dressing to drizzle on top!
Homemade Fries
While I cant re-create McD’s fries, I make a mean homemade potato ‘wedge.’ The key is to soak them.
Peel your potatoes, placing each in a bowl of cold water as you go on to peel the next. When all are peeled, dump water and get fresh, cold water. Slice each potato in half lengthwise, and then cut each half into 3 or 4 more lengthwise pieces, placing all slices in water as you go on to the next potato. Drain water and get fresh, cold water again. Let everything sit in the water for 30 minutes. This helps remove the starch.
Drain the water and pat potato slices dry on paper towel. The better you dry, the crispier the potatoes. When you are done, drizzle oil (any) and sprinkle with garlic powder and garlic SALT. Toss with tongs.
Bake on parchment-covered cookie sheet for 10 minutes at 400*. Remove from oven, flip each potato slice. Bake 10 more minutes or until done. Sprinkle with salt to taste.
Breakfast Potatoes
Got leftover baked potatoes? Dice them up and throw them in a frying pan with some butter, diced onions, diced green peppers or those mini sweet peppers. Add some garlic powder, black pepper, Lawrey’s seasoning, and onion powder. Stir to coat everything in melted butter and then leave it alone. Let the potatoes crisp up on one side. They are technically already cooked so this is done when everything is warmed through and the potatoes are crispy.
Fantastic with a fried egg on top or you can throw leftover roast or corned beef in the pan and call it a hash. YUM!
Parsley Potatoes
I make these potatoes when I want something simple and fairly light. I typically boil small, red potatoes until a fork pierces easily. Drain and back in the warm pot with some butter, salt, and a little bit of dried parsley. That’s it. Done.
Spud Tip
Potatoes do not freeze well on their own. They will typically turn black and become inedible. HOWEVER, if you add a fat to them — butter, milk, cheese, cream cheese, you get the picture — they do great. So, baked potatoes won’t freeze well, but twice baked potatoes that are stuffed with rich, creamy, buttery mashed potatoes and covered in cheese do great. Likewise, potato skins, that are dipped in melted butter will survive until your next craving hits.