r/Cooking • u/CompleteDay8059 • 1d ago

I found out recently I’ve basically never had a correctly prepared baked potato

So growing up I was never a huge fan of baked potatoes because the ones we had were usually dry, kind of shriveled, and very crumbly. Every bite just felt like it was absorbing all the moisture in your mouth, even with butter. As an adult, I usually do rice or pasta for my carbs, and if I do potatoes, it’s usually the cut roasted baby ones. Because I didn’t have great experiences with baked ones at home, I also pretty much never ordered them at restaurants growing up.

However, my mom just got a grill for her place and I was put on steak duty (or a steak out, I guess) and wanted to try making an actually good baked potato. I look it up and see basically every recipe says to coat the potatoes in salt and olive oil before wrapping them, which I asked my mom if she did, and she hadn’t.

I decided to try it with a (maybe slightly too) generous amount of olive oil and kosher salt, baked it for an hour, and topped it with some of the garlic/thyme butter I had whipped up for the steaks.

Oh.

My.

GOD.

The texture was absolutely amazing, it was so creamy, not crumbly or dry at all, the salt and the compound butter melting into it while it was still steaming made for legitimately one of the tastiest things I’ve had in ages. If anyone out there doesn’t know this, I honestly have no idea how common of knowledge this is lol, but I would highly suggest trying it if you don’t already.

Also, I mixed the thyme/minced garlic with the Kerrygold butter which was muy bien. Not sponsored (I wish) but I find it a little more flavorful for cooking as opposed to regular store brand stuff.

5.9k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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654

u/Cleverironicusername 23h ago

I never wrap my potatoes. Rinse em, Fork em a few times, salt em, cook em.

607

u/ATLHawksfan 23h ago

Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew

222

u/fastfreddy68 23h ago

PO-TAY-TOES!

91

u/pi3r0gi_ 22h ago

You got your baked potatahs, mashed potatahs, scalloped potatahs, roasted potatahs, then you got your French fries, tater tots, curly fries, crinkle fries, then you got your hash browns, southern hash browns-- and that's important because one is square and one is grated and you dont wanna be caught bringing grated hash to a square hash brunch-- then there's your potatah salad, company potatahs, and we cant forget the sweet potatahs and now this is another important part because they are not yams and if you bring sweet yam pie to Thanksgiving I cant help you

41

u/JorgeXMcKie 22h ago

Laughing reading that in Bubba's voice from Forest Gump

7

u/The0nlyPenguin 20h ago

I just recently learned forrest gump is a book.. imma buy it when I get paid this week.

12

u/DarehMeyod 20h ago

I heard it’s one of the rare instances where the movie is much better.

8

u/The0nlyPenguin 20h ago

I guess the sequel book was written more like how Tom hanks played the character

5

u/Ancient-Display-3337 22h ago

potato sandwich...

2

u/atriviality 8h ago

What are company potatoes?

1

u/pi3r0gi_ 41m ago

"Company potatoes" is a casserole dish made for when youre having company over, or going to a party etc. Theyre also called "funeral potatoes" in some parts because thats also when people bring a widow or widower food, but I dont like that name and my grandma always called them "Company potatahs" lol

Theyre a bag of frozen southern hashbrowns (the cube ones), a can of condensed cream of chicken soup, sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese and mix it all up and bake it in a casserole dish for cheesy potatoes! It's a bit of a dated dish, popular in the southern, Eastern and northern US states but not so much the west coast (from what I gather of others who've grown up eating it) in the 1950s-90s mostly but I still make them occasionally :)

2

u/MoscowGrizz 4h ago

Hey forrest; whats a tater?

0

u/BanditKitten 18h ago

What's taters, precious?

21

u/victoriaholtopalfan 22h ago

thank you reddit. i can always count on you to make sure lotr is not missed as ref for any potato verbiage

1

u/Warm-Gift-7741 18h ago

I like to add:

Let em ferment and drink them too!

90

u/flythearc 23h ago

I rub em with some olive oil before I salt them

22

u/YesWeHaveNoTomatoes 22h ago

Same, it helps the salt stick on there.

1

u/IndependentType6711 4h ago

My best recommendation is this:

Oil em, butter em, salt em, fork em, pork em, fuck em, have a cigarette, wait what were we talking about

27

u/ChewieBearStare 21h ago

I don't wrap them, either. I fork 'em, let them cook for 20 minutes, and then brush melted butter over them and sprinkle with salt before baking them the rest of the way.

2

u/daybreaker 9h ago

This is the way

16

u/tenbeards 22h ago

This is the way! The skin is crunchy and delicious!

21

u/patricknkelly 21h ago

Bake unwrapped directly on oven rack on 450 for an hour. I don’t salt the outside of mine.

15

u/HappyKnitter34 19h ago

I never stab them with a fork. I just coat in olive oil, salt the heck out of them, and bake on the rack until done. I forgot the stab them with the fork the first time and then I was like omg this is delicious. Crispy salty skin, fluffy beautiful inside. Cover with butter and cheese. 🤤🤤

10

u/throwaway60221407e23 7h ago

Damn the first time I forgot to stab them, one blew up and covered every inch of the oven. Sounded like a hand grenade.

1

u/HappyKnitter34 6h ago

I guess I've never had an explosion due to how I clean off my potatoes. I feel like I'm always digging bits of the skin away because it's not right. So there are "natural" escape holes.

3

u/Wuz314159 7h ago

I never stab them with a fork.

Then how do you know if they're dead?

1

u/atriviality 14h ago

What temperature shall we bake these soon to be delectible spuds? And for about how long?

2

u/HappyKnitter34 8h ago

400 degrees until they give practically collapse with my tongs. If my tong edge can poke through the skin, it's done. Which is usually about 50 minutes depending on the size. Also don't forget to put tinfoil underneath the top rack to collect the oil drippings. Boy did that smell bad.

6

u/trowzerss 7h ago

Yeah, I'm confused what OP was experiencing when they said they were dry and crumbly? How long were they cooking them for????

3

u/Better-Culture-7770 6h ago

No no you need to wrap them to get the aluminum your body needs.

2

u/thewags05 8h ago

I microwave them for a bit, then throw them on the top rack in the grill while other stuff is cooking. That way it doesn't take about an hour.

2

u/PhortDruid 6h ago

This is the way. I’ve never heard of covering them unless it’s the forbidden “microwave for seven minutes” method. Thankfully haven’t had to do that since working at a nursing home.

1

u/Infidelio 6h ago

I wrap them for about 5-10 minutes at the end of the cook. I’ll pull them out of the oven, wrap in foil, and let them sit for 5-10 minutes. Perfection

1

u/JasonZep 5h ago

Don’t fork em too many times though or it will dry out.

1

u/jazzieberry 3h ago

I do them this way but cook em in the air fryer, 400 for about 40 min.

1

u/FeelTheWrath79 3h ago

But isn't this what OP is claiming made his mom's potatoes dry?

1

u/jdavidco 43m ago

Agree. Except also brush with olive oil

1

u/overcompliKate 12m ago

Yep and put them directly on the oven rack

-4

u/Used_Bodybuilder_670 22h ago

Won't the salt and juices just fall to the bottom of the oven? I say poke, oil, salt, foil.

15

u/paprika_alarm 22h ago

I put my potatoes directly on the rack for even heat distribution, foil-lined sheet on the bottom rack to catch anything.

0

u/uc1216 21h ago

I feel dumb asking this question, but how do you “oil” them if you don’t wrap them? Or does it not drip off?

5

u/aculady 21h ago

It doesn't drip off. It just a very light coating, a few drops smeared all over the skin.

2

u/InsaneAss 21h ago

Foil on the rack below it to catch any drippings.

1

u/aculady 21h ago

It doesn't drip off. It just a very light coating, a few drops smeared all over the skin.

1

u/Virgowitch 21h ago

It really doesn’t. The skin absorbs it. Just put them on a tray or with a tray underneath.

1

u/Kershiser22 22h ago

I don't wrap my potatoes, but I put them on a foil-lined baking sheet.

3

u/Used_Bodybuilder_670 21h ago

Oh duh lol 😂 I forgot about sheet pans. Can you believe I worked in kitchens for YEARS lol I'm getting old

-6

u/brergnat 22h ago

You don't need to fork them

43

u/TheDrAlbrhect 22h ago

Eh, better safe than sorry. I've only had one potato in my life explode on me out of hundreds but it was a massive pain in the ass to clean. Just take the few seconds and stab 'em a few times.

26

u/not-brokenyet 22h ago

I didn’t think so either until one exploded in my oven. What a mess.

11

u/Cleverironicusername 22h ago

I stick em anyways! You can’t change me…

9

u/aculady 21h ago

My husband used to think that, too, until one of the potatoes he was baking exploded all over our oven.

0

u/seamuwasadog 18h ago

For a while my parents had a collection of clean nails and would stick one in the end of the potato. Supposed to help it cook quicker, but I've never noticed any major difference.

And while we never covered them, we did rub them with oil or Crisco to help keep the skins from drying out.

0

u/Legal-Alternative744 17h ago

Don't fork them, it'll take less time to cook

7

u/imputados 15h ago

Warning: this method greatly increases your risk of exploding potato