Fried potatoes have been a  part of my life for as long as I can remember! I grew up on them, and still cook them often.

It took me a while to learn how to make them perfectly! Many people have problems with them– either burning them or they are not done enough. The secret to good fried potatoes is time! They need time to cook and cannot be rushed! I’m talking like half hour! To illustrate this for you, I timed making them today. Pan to plate was 29 minutes. So allow yourself the time and don’t rush them!

J prefers baby red potatoes for most everything, so that is what we usually have in the house. I’m not partial to any potato really…I just use whatever we have for this. They all make good fried potatoes!

Peel and wash your potatoes, then they need sliced. I use a mandolin slicer (not to be confused with the musical instrument!) because it’s fast, easy, and creates uniform slices. You can just slice them using a knife though. Just try to make all the slices the same general size. They should be thick enough that you can’t see through them, but still fairly thin. The thicker they are, the longer they will take to cook, and visa versa.

You can add some chopped onion if you have some and/or some peppers. Our fridge was pretty empty so my potatoes are alone. If you do use onion, just add it in with the potatoes. Anything else you might want to mix with them (eggs, sausage, bacon) is best cooked separately and then mixed in when they are both done cooking.

I use extra virgin olive oil almost exclusively. I have canola for baking, and some non-stick spray, but other than that, it’s olive oil. The brand really doesn’t matter. There are variations in the taste, with the more expensive being more pure and smooth, but unless you are a foodie connoisseur, you would never notice. Just use whatever brand you want. Fried potatoes take a bit more oil than anything else I fry. This is about two tablespoons. Add the oil to your pan and turn the heat to med-low. So on my stove, the dial reads numbers so I set it to 3-4.

Potatoes are very absorbent so you will need to add a lot of salt! This is really personal preference. I don’t usually like much salt in my food, and I like more pepper. So just add salt until you think its well-salted for your tastes, then add a little more. Pepper to your taste, then cover.

After salt and pepper

Cooking over med-low heat.

Keep the pan covered as you cook. You want the moisture to stay in the pan so your potatoes don’t dry out. You don’t need to stir it very often. You can walk away and do other things. I washed dishes as mine were cooking. The first time I stirred it was 4 minutes into cooking.  Next time I stirred was at 9 minutes (picture above). These are really hard to mess up so long as you cook them slow.

This is 18 minutes in. You can see that the potatoes are starting to be solid-looking and are falling apart a little.

This (below) is coming up on 24 minutes. You can see the potatoes are really falling apart now. At this point I turned up the heat to 4-5 (medium), kept the lid off, and kept my attention on them. I stirred them about every minute. You don’t have to worry about separating each slice of potato. They will cook fine. I used this plastic spatula to break up the big clumps, push it around a bit, and flip them like a pancake.

Separating the big clumps of potatoes

Flipping them like a pancake.

The added heat helps them brown a bit and burns off the excess oil. Just before I take them out of the pan, I salt and peppered them again, and gave them a good stir.

At 29 minutes, they are cooked through but not mush, and browned but not burnt.

You can add some cheese, salsa, or do like me….eat them the old-fashioned way with ranch dressing! I hope yummy fried potatoes are in your very near future!