Best Roast Potatoes You Can Dream Of
Roast potatoes: the perfect side to any dish. Whether you’re planning a Sunday roast or just a chicken breast for dinner, roast potatoes will surely elevate it to new standards. And if you use the tricks and tips we found, those are gonna be even better.
Depending on how you like your roast potatoes texture, you might want to adjust how long you cook them for. This recipe is meant for the texture that we personally love and crave every time we go out: slightly crunchy (but not too crunchy) on the outside and nice and soft on the inside.
Ridiculously Tasty Roast Potatoes
Equipment
- Y-peeler (optional)
- Pot
- Oven
Ingredients
- 600 gr potatoes
- 60 ml vegetable oil (1/4 cup)
- 1 tsp rosemary
- 1 tsp thyme
Instructions
- Start by peeling (or scrubbing, if you prefer them peel-on) the potatoes and dice them into 1-inch cubes (approximately 2cm). In the meantime, stat heating the oven 200°C/390°F fan.
- Bring a pot full of water to a boil and add salt. Add the diced potatoes and cook for 7 minutes to parboil them.
- Once they're done, drain and let them rest for at least 5 minutes.
- Transfer to a bowl and add the vegetable oil and mix well. Transfer to parchment paper and when the oven is hot enough, put the potatoes in.
- Cook for 30 minutes (making sure to turn them halfway) and then check how they're doing: depending on the type of potatoes and how you diced them they might need a bit more time (usually no more than 20 minutes if you cut some big chunks)
- When your potatoes are ready to be taken out, sprinkle with rosemary, thyme and salt immediately. Your roast potatoes are ready to serve.
Why are roast potatoes so good?
I actually don’t have an answer for that but I can tell you that growing up I didn’t like them. Potatoes for me were only acceptable in a fried form. Then one day, I was at my best friend’s house for dinner and she cooked these tiny roast potatoes that were nice, crunchy, and soft on the inside and well, I changed my mind.
Texture in food, and for roast potatoes particularly, makes the difference. This is why I am not a fan of cooking food on top of potatoes, as the ones hidden underneath are not gonna cook properly and will just become mushy. When we cooked our chicken roast dinner, I was extra careful in placing the potatoes in strategic positions to allow all of them to cook nicely.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to preference, but I’ll always be partial to a softer and less dense potato – in whatever form it might come. Which also means that I sometimes struggle with chunky fried potatoes, such a staple in pubs nationwide. I’m not gonna justify myself, but if I had to pick a team, I’ll be Team Skinny Fries.
One-Fits-All
So the nice thing about this recipe is that no matter what potatoes you’re using, it’s gonna work perfectly. We tried with baking potatoes, Yukon gold potatoes, Russet potatoes, baby potatoes, and purple potatoes too! You might be surprised (probably not), but since we get our potatoes from Oddbox, we had to find a way to adapt this recipe to all sort of potatoes and – not to brag but – we succeeded.
The Kitchn actually has a lovely article explaining the differences among different types of potatoes (apparently, there are 16 of them but I feel there’s more). I don’t know about you, but my next aim is to get my hands on the All Blue potato and test that.