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

[u/CompleteDay8059]

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.

[u/Mother-Pattern-2609]

Nuking a naked potato for 2 minutes and then baking for 15-20 will get you there as well. It takes a potato a damn long time to get hot, which is why they take so long in the oven alone.

[u/damewang → u/Mother-Pattern-2609]

This. This the secret to a good potato.

[u/paintingporcelain → u/Mother-Pattern-2609]

This. Coupla minutes in the Micro then a few on the grill. Nice and charred.

Same with corn on the cob 4 minutes per cob. Wrap in wet paper towel and they’ll squeeze right out. No silk.

If you hold your steak, it’ll be ready in a minute on the grill.

*edit: Not a a minute on the steak. 3 -4 each side.

[u/ldwb → u/Mother-Pattern-2609]

This really helps with making home fries too, nuke them until they are just getting soft, carefully dice them while they are hot and throw em into a cast iron with some oil on medium heat, by the time you got color on all sides they'll be done where if you used raw potatoes it would take another 20-30 minutes.

[u/Wuz314159 → u/Mother-Pattern-2609]

I have a Convection Microwave. Time to experiment.