Quick and Easy Home Fries Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should I boil potatoes before frying? ›

The truth is: you don't need to pre-cook your potatoes at all. Our easy, quick (ready in 20 minutes!) recipe results in extra-crispy pan-fried potatoes without all the hassle.

Soaking your fries in cold water helps remove excess starch, which allows for crispy, golden fries! The cold water bath also helps the french fries retain their shape and contributes to a fluffy inside.

Before all that, though, the secret is to briefly poach them in boiling water (or "blanch" them) before they go into the hot oil. This ensures that the fries are cooked all the way through before getting crisped up in the fryer.

Allow them to soak, 2 to 3 hours. (You can also stick them in the fridge and let them soak overnight.) When you're ready to make the fries, drain off the water and lay the potatoes on 2 baking sheets lined with paper towels. Blot with paper towels to dry them.

… reduce the heat to a lower temperature setting so we're left with a gentle boil. This will make sure the fries are parboiled prior to frying. When the fries are done parboiling, remove to a dish towel or paper towel in a single layer and let them dry as the steam comes off them for a few minutes.

Soaking potatoes in water helps remove excess starch. Excess starch can inhibit the potatoes from cooking evenly as well as creating a gummy or sticky texture on the outside of your potatoes. Cold water is used because hot water would react with the starch activating it, making it harder to separate from the potatoes.

Take a large bowl and soak the potatoes in cold water. Make sure that you soak the potatoes for at least 2-3 hours. Soaking the sliced potatoes in cold water is one of the main steps to prepare perfect French Fries. The cold water removes the starch present outside the potatoes so that you get perfectly crispy fries.

Starch rich potatoes usually turn soft and crumbly, while frying or baking. So, if you are making delicacies wherein you want the potatoes to be crispy and crunchy, then removing starch is the best way to keep your wafers, fries, crispy potatoes, hash browns crisp and delicious.

Why aren't my homemade fries crispy? ›

Soggy fries have usually either been cooked in oil that isn't hot enough, or were cooked in too large a batch, overcrowding the pan and reducing the heat. The secret to getting tasty French fries that are crisp on the outside and nice and fluffy on the inside is to fry them twice.

Crispier Texture when Cooking:Soaking raw potatoes in salt water can help draw out excess moisture from the potatoes. This can result in a crispier texture when the potatoes are cooked, particularly when frying or roasting. Improved Flavor:Some people find that soaking potatoes in salt water enhances their flavor.

The best potatoes for French fries are soaked in a sugar solution before frying. The sugar solution has something to do with the carbohydrates and prevents the potatoes from soaking up a lot of grease, so they get crunchy.

There's moisture naturally found in potatoes, and moisture is drawn to higher concentrations of salt. (This is a process called osmosis.) So, if you put the potatoes in a salt water bath, that will help draw out some of their moisture, resulting in crispier fries.

If you're using russet potatoes then start by soaking the raw potatoes in ice water to remove the starch. This step makes them extra crispy and delicious. If you're using a thin-skinned potato variety feel free to skip! Slice potatoes or cube them but make sure they're the same size so that they all cook evenly.

Learn more about all the different types of potatoes. We'll say it again because we know it's hard to believe but you seriously don't need to boil these spuds. Slicing them thin will allow them to cook through in the same amount of time that they need to get brown and crispy on the outside.

This simple trick can make a big difference in the taste and texture of your fries. Here's why: - Boiling potatoes deactivates an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, which causes potatoes to turn brown when exposed to air. This way, your fries will look more appetizing and won't have a bitter flavor.

Caption Options. The second thing you can do is par-cook your potatoes. Boil your cut potatoes in a pot of salted water for about 5 minutes, just until they begin to soften and become slightly translucent.