Recipe Overview
Why you’ll love it: This easy how-to guide will show you how to make baked potatoes with a crispy brown exterior and fluffy white interior. Enjoy perfectly baked potatoes as a filling main dish or versatile side dish.
How long it takes: just over an hour
Equipment you’ll need: oven
Servings: make as many as you want!
Perfect Baked Potatoes
Baked potatoes are filling, nutritious, and economical. They smell sooooo good while they’re baking. However, maybe you’re wondering how to make really delicious baked potatoes. I’ll help you out with a how-to guide that will teach you how to make perfectly brown and crispy baked potatoes with a fluffy white interior. I have lots of tips and information below to help you out.
Super easy! While baked potatoes aren’t a quick dinner idea, they are very easy to make and once they’re in the oven, it’s totally hands off time. Spend 5 minutes getting the potatoes ready, and pop them in the oven for awhile. Bonus: There won’t be any pans to wash.
Versatile. Fluffy baked potatoes can be served as a side dish or main dish. While the potatoes are in the oven, you’ll have time to get the rest of dinner ready whether you’re making salmon or pork chops, or serving the baked potatoes with a selection of sides and a salad.
Toppings! Perfectly baked potatoes don’t really need much beyond melted butter and freshly cracked black pepper but they do adapt well to lots of different toppings, too. Take a look at the Topping Ideas section for inspiration.
Need a faster way to bake potatoes? Try baking them in your air fryer if you have one. They turn out pretty much the same as oven baked potatoes but in only 40 minutes. Or try easy Instant Pot baked potatoes (especially if you prefer softer skins) or loaded baked potato slices.
How to Make Baked Potatoes
Choose the right potato! While other potatoes will be okay, russet potatoes are definitely the king of baking potatoes. Russet potatoes have thicker skins which turn into a nice crispy exterior, and starchy flesh, which yields a fluffy white interior.
Scrub, scrub, scrub! You’re going to eat the skins, so please make sure they’re clean. Nobody wants to crunch down on a piece of grit. When you’re finished scrubbing the potato, dry it thoroughly with a paper towel or clean dish towel. A dry potato equals a crispy potato skin.
Trim any bad spots off and poke the potatoes. Check the potato carefully for green spots, eyes, sprouts, or damaged skin and trim them away with a sharp paring knife. Poke the potatoes a few times with a fork or the tip of your paring knife. There’s no need to go deeply, just puncture the skin so the steam can release.
Cover the potatoes with a thin coat of oil and season. I like olive oil, but butter or another kind of oil is fine. Don’t want to get your hands dirty? Spray the potatoes with olive oil spray. Sprinkle the potatoes liberally with coarse salt and pepper.
Bake the potato. There are more than one way to bake a potato so choose the way you like best. I think the easiest way is to put the potatoes on a foil lined baking sheet, sides not touching. Or bake them on a wire rack set on a baking sheet. Or set the potatoes directly on your oven racks (put a pan on a lower rack beneath the potatoes to catch drippings).
Serve your perfectly beautiful baked potatoes. Immediately make a slice in the top with a sharp knife. Squeeze the bottom (wear an oven mitt!) to open the top of the baked potato up a bit. Or use a fork to spread it open.
Top with your favorite toppings! Keep reading for lots of great suggestions.
Baked potatoes are a great side dish. Put lemon salmon with dill in the oven after the potatoes have been baking for a half hour or so. Serve an arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette alongside for a fabulous dinner.
Helpful Tips
Poke the potato. As I mentioned above, you should poke a few small holes in the skin of the potato before baking it so the steam can be released. You don’t have to go in deeply. Do the poking right before baking. If you do this step too far ahead of time, oxidization will occur and the flesh of the potato will turn an unappetizing gray where the skin is punctured.
Foil or no foil. Should you wrap the potatoes or not? It depends on how you like the skin. I love the salty crispy brown skin of a baked potato–it’s the best part! Potatoes wrapped in foil will have soft skins because they steam as they bake.
Baking potatoes at a different oven temperature: Baked potatoes are pretty forgiving. You can usually bake them at the same temperature as whatever else you have in the oven. The oven temperature can range anywhere between 300°F to 450°F, however, the optimal range is 375°F-425°F. Just remember that lower temperatures will increase baking time; higher temperatures will decrease baking time. The internal temp should be between 205°F-212°F.
Not quite ready to serve the potatoes? If dinner’s not quite ready yet, don’t worry, baked potatoes will be fine if they spend extra time in the oven. Some people say the longer the better, up to two hours. You be the judge. You can always turn the oven temp down a little if you’re worried they’re getting too done.
Make It Your Own
Be creative! Now that you know how to make baked potatoes, it’s time to dress them up. While baked potatoes are totally delicious with just a pat of butter melted inside, they really are a blank slate.
Meatless main dish. Make baked potatoes the star of the meal, perfect for meatless Mondays, by adding substantial toppings, like vegetarian chili, cheese, or beans.
Baked potato bar. Baked potatoes are a great idea if you’re serving a crowd, too. Simply bake a bunch of potatoes and set up a do-it-yourself baked potato bar with lots of toppings that guests can add as they like. Call it “Spud Night”!
Topping Ideas
- Homemade garlic butter, with fresh garlic and chopped parsley.
- Sautéed mushrooms or take it up a notch with sautéed mushrooms with marsala.
- Bacon. Obviously. Or diced ham.
- Chili, because we’re taking things seriously here.
- Cheese or cheese sauce. Or both. Homemade beer cheese is wonderful, too.
- Sour cream or Greek yogurt.
- Green onions or chives, pickled red onions, or caramelized onions, because caramelized onions make everything better.
- Avocado, because like bacon and caramelized onions, it makes everything better.
- Broccoli – the perfect match to creamy cheddar cheese sauce.
- Salsa! I like to do a southwestern baked potato with taco meat, pinto beans, salsa, cheese, avocado, and heaps of chopped cilantro.
- BBQ chicken piled on a baked potato is so good! Pulled pork, too.
Baked potatoes will keep well in your fridge for 4 to 5 days. Wrap them in plastic wrap or put them in a covered bowl. The skins won’t retain the crispness of a freshly baked potato but if you reheat them in the oven or toaster oven, they will be refreshed.
Free Meal Plan
Interested in a weekly meal plan that includes this recipe? Take a look at my Meal Plan #1 or Meal Plan #18 (the potatoes are loaded with chili!). You’ll find a wholesome recipe for each weekday plus a categorized grocery list. Let me do the planning for you this week! We add a new meal plan weekly.
More Potato Recipes
How to Make Baked Potatoes
Ingredients
- 4 russet potatoes, scrubbed well (about 2 pounds total)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- coarse ground black pepper (to taste)
Instructions
- Place oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400ºF. Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper for easy clean up.
- Wash and dry potatoes well. Poke potatoes a few times lightly with a fork or the tip of a paring knife.
- Rub potatoes with oil and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Place on baking sheet, sides not touching each other.
- Bake for 45 to 60 minutes or until fork tender. The baking time can vary, depending on the size and shape of your potatoes.
- Remove from oven. Using a sharp knife, immediately make a cut in the top of the potatoes. Using an oven mitt, gently squeeze the bottoms of the potatoes to open up the tops. Or spread them apart with a couple of forks.
- Serve with desired toppings.
Notes
- Increase yield. Make as many potatoes as you like; just don’t overcrowd the baking sheet.
- Extra crisp: If you prefer, place the potatoes on a wire rack in the pan or directly on the oven rack, with a pan beneath to catch drippings.
- Oven temperature: Potatoes can be baked at higher or lower oven temperatures, keeping in mind that cooking time will vary.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did You Make This?Share a comment and rating below! I love hearing what you think!
I grew up in potato country. I started picking them in the field in 1948-49. We were paid about $.05 a stub (70-80 lbs!). You drug a gunny sack between your legs, hooked to a board that that fit across just above your knees, and was hooked to a broad belt that had large hooks on the back of it so you could carry 50 or more extra gunny sacks with you. Made good money if you could pick fast and did not include dirt clods with the potatoes!
I just wanted to let you know that you left out one of the super, most delicious ways to use a baked potato! ALWAYS bake up extra potatoes, why waste the time when it is so easy to do when you’re already doing it anyway?
After the extra potatoes have cooled down, put them in a paper bag, close the top up and place them in the frig. Next morning, take them out and either slice them, or as I prefer, cut them into bite size pieces.
Fry up some slightly crisp bacon, don’t remove the grease, may need some more or olive oil, crumble up the bacon, set aside. Heat up the skillet, you want it hot enough to brown and crisp the potatoes as you fry them in the bacon grease. You can add diced onion to the potatoes as well. before the potatoes are completely browned and crisped on the outside and the onion is cooked, add the crumbled bacon back in. Serve with eggs, or your breakfast. Good any old time, but I especially like them for breakfast!
Also, if, and when, camping, either drag your fire to the side, or rake a bunch of coals to the side, dig a small hole for each potato you want to bake, drop a potato in, cover it with more coals, and bake as you would in the oven. May not take quite as long so kind of watch them. This way of cooking makes absolutely the best tasting potato skins you will ever eat! Just brush the coals off, they’re sanitary! Eat them the way we did, eat the insides out, slather lots of butter on the inside, salt and pepper if you want, and enjoy! My brother and I did this often when we were kids hiking the country around the Lava Beds in northern California. No butter then, just salt. That’s survival food!
DO NOT use the fire pits in camp grounds to do this, unless you dig out ALL the old pit remains and replace it with good, clean dirt! Too many people have the nasty habit of urinating on old camp fires!
Sounds delicious…can’t go wrong with bacon grease!
I love a baked potato!
Me too!