How to Bake a Potato

A baked potato is essentially a baked potato.

As with all things basic, however, the simplicity of a baked potato is deceptive. We all had excellent baked potatoes and terrible baked potatoes. Luckily, an excellent one is no harder to make than a terrible one.

Video: how to bake a potato

Start with the right potato

Use red potatoes for baking. They are the large, pointed ones with dull brown skin. These are high-starch potatoes and do best in dry heat. That’s exactly the kind of heat your oven produces. It’s a match made in heaven!

Potatoes with high moisture content, like Redskins or Yukon Golds, do best for moist heat: steaming and cooking. They are less starchy and remain dense after baking, which is not desirable in a baked potato.

Big and small potatoes

If you want to split that baked potato and load it with hearty toppings (like broccoli or chili or pulled pork or salsa and guacamole and black beans…sigh), a 6- to 8-ounce potato might still be a good choice for you, and I’ll add it to prepare a full meal.

In any case, the larger the potato, the longer it will take to bake. Remember that.

Poke to prevent explosions

Want your potato to explode in the oven? no More importantly, do you want it to taste great? Yes. Then prick several times with a fork. Ten times per potato should be enough. Potato mashing is cathartic. Have fun.

Much less dramatic Poking Hole gives you excellent baked potatoes. According to the Idaho Potato Commission, potatoes are about 80 percent water. As your potatoes bake, some of that water turns into steam and exits through the tiny channels you put in it. That moisture loss is a good thing. Aside from preventing explosions, it yields lighter, fluffier baked potatoes.

To oil or not to oil

Rubbing the potato with some oil or fat before baking is a good move in my opinion. It crisps up the skin nicely, giving you a contrast to the steaming, starchy interior. The potatoes come out of the oven looking darker, shinier, and more appetizing than unoiled ones.

Some sources say that oiling the potato before baking locks in the moisture, which is the opposite of what you want — you want the potato to release moisture. But we’ve already made it full of holes, remember?

TRY THIS! At my very first job at the restaurant, we dunked our potatoes in a vat of bacon and then topped them with delicious crumbs from the bottom of the crouton pan. They were heavenly. If you’re cooking bacon, save that fat for your baked potatoes!

When and where to salt

I’m all for salting potato skins: Salt gives potato skins a good flavor.

Salt will stick to a greased potato better than a dry potato, but some will still fall off. That’s just the name of the game.

The salt on the skin won’t season the inside of the potato with a leak, so remember to salt it well once it’s on your plate and bursting open.

Skip the slide

Wrapping a potato in foil before baking traps the steam inside, resulting in a dense, gooey flesh. Potatoes already have a very fine covering: their skin. And you can eat them! So leave out the foil before baking. It’s an extra step that makes not-so-good potatoes.

How long to bake a potato?

How long does it take to bake a potato? It depends. The short answer is: it’s not fast!

Expect baked potatoes to take anywhere from 35 to 55 minutes, or over an hour if you’re using giant honking mega potatoes. The baking time depends on the size of the potato.

The best baking temperature

Not too hot, not too cool. We like 400°F best.

When is it ready?

It can be difficult to estimate the doneness of a baked potato. Because they come in so many sizes, it’s best to rely on how they look, smell and feel rather than a timer (but set a timer anyway so you remember to check them out). Here are some tips:

• Fully baked potatoes have slightly wrinkled skins.
• They can make tiny hissing noises if you listen carefully.
• If you squeeze a potato lightly, it should yield to the pressure of your fingers and might even split open a little.
• You should be able to insert a fork or skewer deep into the potato with minimal resistance.

If you’re still unsure, use an instant-read thermometer: the internal temperature should be between 208°F and 211°F. (In this magical temperature zone, starch granules in the potato have absorbed water and broken up, making the inner flesh fluffy and light.)

Open to serve

Take the hot potato on a plate and open it up. For a fluffy, crisp interior that’ll soak up toppings like butter, sour cream, or chili, don’t cut open the potato with a knife. Split with a fork. This will give you a crumbly, mealy flesh and more surface.

baked potatoes in advance

Thousands of steakhouses across America bake potatoes long before serving. These potatoes aren’t as great as the ones straight out of the oven, but they’re pretty good.

However, if baked potatoes are kept hot for more than an hour, their skins will become very wrinkled, their interior will collapse and become dense, and the flesh underneath the skin will turn brown. If you want great baked potatoes, make them no more than an hour in advance.

To keep fully baked potatoes hot, wrap them in foil (I know we used to pee on foil, but that’s foil after the potato is ready baked). It is best to wear an oven mitt. Then place the wrapped potato in one of the options below.

• An Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker on the keep warm setting.
• A slow cooker on the lowest setting.
• A small cooler that was heated with hot water and then emptied.
• A normal oven at the lowest level (ideally “warm”).

Leftover Potatoes

I often bake a few more potatoes than I need. They become building blocks for future meals: hash, gnocchi, stuffed potato skins, twice baked potatoes, improvised baked potato soup.

Allow leftover potatoes to cool, then wrap in foil and refrigerate for up to 4 days. Baked potatoes do not freeze well.

Do you have leftover potatoes? Use them above!

• gnocchi
• Baked Potato Soup
• Potatoes baked twice
• Baked potatoes stuffed with curry chickpeas