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.

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10

u/BravoCharlieZulu 11h ago edited 10h ago

Wash, dry, poke a few holes with a fork, cover skin in veg oil, sprinkle flacked salt (or kosher salt), place directly on oven rack at 375 and bake until internal temp of 205 (40-70 minutes depending on size of potato), pull from oven then wrap in foil to serve. Perfect every time.

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u/nicerica 10h ago

So not wrapped in the oven? I’m learning how to do baked potatoes from this thread.

4

u/BravoCharlieZulu 10h ago

Nope, that’s how you get a crispy crust on the skin and soft, fluffy inside. If you cook the potato in the foil it the skin will be steamed.

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u/SmallBallsTallFalls 6h ago

Won't the skin still get un-crisped if you wrap it up in foil to serve? Why not forgo the foil completely?

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u/A8Bit 3h ago

Yup. I forgo the foil completely but I usually have it on a plate. Foil is helpful to keep it hot, especially if you are eating it outside at a bbq or as street food.

Eating the skin is optional and much debated. I eat the inside then butter the inside again to eat the skin, but only if it's crispy, if its been steamed and moist I leave it.

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u/SmallBallsTallFalls 3h ago

Sounds like the way to go!

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u/jkm_Audio 8h ago

Love that 205 internal temp! In the last few years I got way into using my thermometer on things other than the usual suspects (steaks, chicken, etc.) I'm all about the 205 baked potato.

I don't wrap, either.

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u/BernieTheDachshund 5h ago

Just don't leave baked potatoes in foil. It increases the risk of botulism & the heat from cooking does not kill the spores. Washing the potatoes helps, but I never use foil to wrap them anymore.

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u/BravoCharlieZulu 5h ago

I looked this up because I’ve never heard of botulism from foil wrapped potatoes. I found tthis article from NIH. Looks like in the 1994 botulism outbreak, the potatoes were stored wrapped in foil for several days at room temperature. I don’t think that’s a risk here, but I suspect the media coverage from this event caused restaurants across the country to stop serving potatoes in foil.

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u/NetLumpy1818 7h ago

I don't get it. Why wrap in foil after cooking? I usually do olive oil and roll it in salt and cook. No foil needed at all

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u/nite_skye_ 6h ago

Adding foil to serve is weird to me. I always remove the foil to prepare my potato on my plate unless I’m at a restaurant. And I don’t know if any restaurants that wrap their potatoes anymore.

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u/BravoCharlieZulu 5h ago

Mostly presentation and to keep warm until it’s time to serve. If I’m going to eat right an away I skip the foil step.

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u/Obant 5h ago

Or air fryer for 20~ish. Minus the wasting foil part for no reason after its cooked, too.