How Do You Roast Potatoes In The Oven?

Last Updated on 22nd April 2022 by

Oven roasted potatoes are one of my favorite dishes to make. Why is that? It’s because they’re so easy to prepare and yet taste so good. There are also tons of different ways you can season this dish, making it very versatile.

Roasted potatoes are a great addition to any meal that contains some beef, along with a few other meats. They are an excellent side with steak or burgers, and they complement pasta, pizza, and cooked veggie dishes.

What do you need to have on hand to make roasted potatoes in the oven? Fresh herbs taste best, but you can use dried ones you got from the seasoning aisle as well. I’d also recommend that you use fresh potatoes rather than canned ones. You can be really creative with your potato seasonings, as just about anything tastes good on potatoes.

I’m going to recommend a few for you in the recipe below, but you can try sweet, spicy, savory, and salty seasonings on your roasted potatoes. Playing around with the recipe and ingredients can give you some great variations you might not have thought of before. I would definitely say you should check out your spice cupboard and see what’s there and try different things on your potatoes to see how well they work. That’s how versatile roasted potatoes are- they go with almost anything.

How to Make Oven Roasted Potatoes

Start off by preheating your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. This will give you a crispy outer layer for the potatoes, but if you want them softer and not as crispy, you can lower the temperature. Because potatoes are so dense, it takes a while to cook them, even at a high heat. The smaller you chop up your potatoes, the faster they will cook. If you crowd your baking sheet or put a lot of potatoes in the oven at once, you’ll extend the baking time.

There’s no need to increase the heat beyond 425 degrees Fahrenheit. That won’t really make the potatoes cook any faster. Instead, you will end up burning the outside and possibly not cooking the inside properly. You can cook potatoes at a much lower temperature in the oven, if you want, but I find that the higher temperature helps them to come out fluffy. If you use a lower temperature, then you have to cook them for longer.

How do you cut potatoes for oven roasting? Most people chop them into small cubes or little wedges. Basically, you’re creating a crisscross pattern of cuts on the potatoes when you prepare them for the baking sheet. In preparing your potatoes, wash and scrub them, but don’t peel them. The outer skin becomes crispy when cooked, giving the potato extra texture. It also adds fiber to the dish, though you can peel off the skin if you want. However, classic oven roasted potatoes include the skin.

Just slice the potatoes, lay them lengthwise and slice from top to bottom. Then, while holding the two halves of the potato together, slice horizontally. You should have made four slices of potatoes at this point, and you can take each of those quarters individually and slice them into smaller cubes or wedges. Depending on how thick your quarters are, you can either slice them the same way as you did the larger potato- into quarters- or you can make horizontal slices from top to bottom.

Before placing your potato pieces on the baking sheet, you should spread some oil on the sheet. You can use a baking brush to spread oil across the pan, and then place your potatoes onto the pan and use the same brush to spread a little oil on top of them. The oil on the pan prevents the potatoes from sticking to the pan, and the oil on top of the potatoes, helps them to cook thoroughly and become crispy all over.

Next, you can add your seasonings, including salt, pepper, and parsley for basic seasoning. I would also suggest trying some other seasonings, like chili flakes, chili powder, oregano, celery powder, paprika, and others. There’s no need to add a lot of seasoning at once. Two to three seasonings are enough for any dish and doing more than that can confuse the flavor and keep your seasonings from standing out.

Now, you’re ready to stick the potatoes in the oven, if the oven is heated up adequately. If you’re baking at 425 degrees Fahrenheit, you should bake the potatoes for about 25 minutes. The potatoes are done cooking when they start to brown on the bottom side.

You don’t need to rotate them while they cook, though you could if you wanted to brown them more evenly. The potatoes should also be soft if they’re fully cooked. If you want to be sure they’re done cooking, you can poke them with a fork. If the fork slides in easily and smoothly, the potatoes are finished.

What Do You Do with Leftover Roast Potatoes?

If you can’t eat all the potatoes in one sitting, you can store them in the fridge for later. They will stay good for three to four days in the fridge. To reheat them, you can use the microwave or oven. For the best texture, you definitely want to use the oven to warm your potatoes back up.

You may want to do something differently with your potatoes once you have some leftovers. You can mash them up to make mashed potatoes or grate them for hashbrowns. Grated potatoes can also be used in casseroles or you can use the roasted potatoes in a breakfast hash, mixing them together with cheese, sausage (or ham), and eggs.

What about Cooking Roast Potatoes at a Lower Temperature?

You don’t have to cook your potatoes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. If you want to use a lower temperature and take longer to cook them, you can do that. I’ll share with you some different cooking temperatures you can use as well as the cooking times for each of those. These are based on roasted potatoes that are cut into cubes about one inch in size.

If you cook them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, you should bake the potatoes for 30 minutes.
For 375 degrees Fahrenheit, bake the potatoes for 35 to 40 minutes.
For 350 degrees Fahrenheit, the potatoes need to bake for 45 to 50 minutes.
If you want to go with a higher temperature, you can bake the potatoes at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 to 25 minutes.

You can experiment with these different temperatures and cooking times to see how the potatoes turn out and which ones you prefer. Keep in mind that the size of a potato and sometimes even the kind of potato you use can affect cooking times. The denser and heavier the potatoes are, and the larger pieces you use, the longer it will take to cook them all the way through.

Brushing the potatoes with a little oil can help speed up the cooking time and ensure more thorough heating.

When roasting potatoes in the oven, you can place them on the middle rack at the center of the oven. Placing them too high or low can affect the cooking times and cause your potatoes to burn or to be undercooked.

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Pauline

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I'm Pauline, a mother of four grown children, my passion for cooking stemmed from the joy i get cooking for my family. I love to try new dishes, especially when dining out but creating and sharing my own recipes is my favourite thing to do!