Perfectly Cooked Potatoes: 6 Air Fryer Methods Tested

What’s up, dude? After 15 years cooking in restaurants and 20 years in the food world, I’ve developed a serious obsession with perfectly cooked potatoes. So today, I’m testing six different methods to find the absolute best way to make crispy, roasted golden potatoes at home using only an air fryer. Now let’s go!

Why You’ll Love This

In restaurants, we’d parboil them and then roast them in the oven in a comical amount of fat. And don’t get me wrong, these were amazing, but also messy, dangerous, time-consuming, and just way too much work for a weeknight.

Ingredients

• Yukon Gold potatoes
• Olive oil
• Rosemary salt
• Salt
• White vinegar

Instructions

So for starters, I’m going to be using Yukon Gold for all the tests we’re doing today.

So my potatoes are washed and cleaned, and all I’m going to do is slice them in half. Slice the halves in half. You can do them a different shape if you want.

Method 1: Direct Air Fry

If you want to oil season and air fry these potatoes, I do not recommend this method, and I’ll tell you why after.

1. Just a good glug of olive oil here.
2. A little toss.
3. And season it however you like. I’m going to do all of them today with rosemary salt, if you know, you know.
4. Then just drop them in a preheated 400 degree air fryer, and make sure you spread them out a little bit.
5. And depending on the strength of your air fryer and the size of your potatoes, it could take anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes.
6. I reckon these will take about 20 minutes.
7. And whenever you’re air frying just about anything, it’s always a good idea to take it out about halfway and just give it a little toss.
8. Just redistribute that oil a little bit.
9. And then refry.
10. After 18 minutes, our first potatoes are done.

Method 2: Rinse, Oil, Season, Air Fry

Moving on, you very well may be the laziest person on earth if you don’t opt for this second method over the first. It’s so easy to do. It’s like literally maybe two minutes of extra work, if that.

1. And same exact method here. I’m going to cut everything same size.
2. Unlike method one, we need to get all the starch off these potatoes. And you do that simply by rinsing them out in cold water about three times.
3. Next, you just want to make them as dry as possible. I just use a little bit of paper towel for this just to remove that excess moisture.
4. Then it’s just the same old process as the first method. Just give them a little bit of olive oil and the seasoning of choice.
5. Then just drop them in the air fryer and cook them for 18 to 20 minutes or until they’re just fork tender. These ones also took 18 minutes. And as you can see, side by side with the previous batch, they turned out really nice and crispy.

Method 3: Blanch, Rough Up, Oil, Season, Air Fry

For this third method, you need to put on your big boy chef pants because we’re going a little bit pro, but I wouldn’t even call it pro. All we’re going to do is blanch these in salted vinegar water first.

And to be quite honest with you, I would be surprised if this wasn’t one of the best methods on our list today. I’ve got high hopes for it.

1. And for this method, we start with four quarts of boiling water. We’re going to add one tablespoon of salt and two tablespoons of just regular old white vinegar. Don’t need anything fancy.
2. Then just carefully lower in your potatoes.
3. And then all we need to do is par boil these until fork tender.
4. So my potatoes only took 12 minutes and they are just perfectly fork tender right now while still holding their shape.
5. All you got to do then is strain them off and let them sit here for about three or four minutes to steam because all that steam is doing now is really drying them out, which makes them so much better for the next step.
6. Tossing them inside of this strainer. And I like doing it in the strainer because all these little holes around the outside actually give it that textured effect.
7. And so I’ll toss and then I’ll also do this. That sort of just roughs up the ones on the bottom.
8. And once you have them textured like this, only now will I add the oil.
9. So I’m just going to get them oiled up to my liking.
10. And while at the same time now, I’m just going to season them with the rosemary salt.
11. And just like before, all you need to do now is get them in the air fryer, make sure they are nicely spread out for cooking.
12. I also tossed this batch a few times throughout and it was done after just 22 minutes. So just slightly longer.

Method 4: Microwave, Freeze, Cut, Oil, Season, Air Fry

For our fourth entry, we are actually going to par cook the potato in the microwave and then air fry it. A lot of people online have said this is really good. Let’s see if it works.

1. And all I’m going to do is take some washed potatoes, two times with a fork so they don’t split and then just jam them in the microwave. It could take anywhere from five to 15 minutes.
2. And my medium sized Yukon Golds took only about 10 minutes when I put a little thermometer in. It goes in nice and easy. So they’re cooked, but just barely right.
3. And lastly, I would recommend you just stick these in the freezer for 12 to 15 minutes just to take that heat out of them.
4. And there’s our potatoes after 15 minutes in the freezer.
5. Now all we got to do is cut them just like the rest, just like so. And they stay together nicely. They definitely cook through.
6. And just the exact same deal as before. We’re going to hit them with some oil and our seasoning. Give it a good toss.
7. And in they go at 400 degrees, just like the others. Should take about 20 minutes, but I will give you the exact time when they get out.
8. These ones actually took the longest at about 23 minutes.

Method 5: Double Fry in Air Fryer

For our fifth method. We are going to attempt to double fry these potatoes solely in the air fryer.

1. And all we’re going to do with these is cut, rinse three times, dry them off, hit them with the oil and seasoning, just like the others, and then cook them at actually 225 degrees Fahrenheit until they’re just fork tender.
2. So these potatoes took 40 minutes to get to that stage where I could just poke them with a little thermometer and it went in nice and easy.
3. At this point, I just jacked up the temperature to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and set a timer for 10 minutes.
4. And there we are. All it took was another 10 minutes and these look perfectly done to me.

Method 6: Blanch, Freeze, Oil, Season, Air Fry

For our sixth and final method, we are going to follow the exact same steps as method three, except after the blanching, we are going to freeze them for a couple of days because I recently did a French fry test and these were by far the best French fries. We’ll talk about it more a little later.

1. And for this method, all we’re going to do is texture those par boiled potatoes before putting them on a tray and letting them cool down, at which point I’ll throw them in a Ziploc and stick them in the freezer for about two days.
2. Potatoes, as the rest, we’re just going to toss them with a little bit of oil and some rosemary salt and then blast them in the air fryer at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Might take a little bit longer.
3. And here we are after 22 minutes. They look nicely done to me.

Cooking Tips

• Just make sure they’re all the same size so they cook evenly.
• Whenever you’re air frying just about anything, it’s always a good idea to take it out about halfway and just give it a little toss.
• You really want to get that excess starch off no matter what you’re doing with the potato.
• If you have the foresight and time to do this sort of meal planning and prep, it’s always a good idea to slice up your potatoes, rinse them out three times and then leave them in the fridge for a day or two. This always just breathes so much life back into them. They get so much harder and a hard potato always makes a better product no matter what you’re doing with them. Trust me, restaurants do this and it is goaded.
• Regardless of how you cook your potatoes, the greatest enemy to crunch is overcrowding.
• People will also recommend putting baking soda in there, which does help break down the edge of that potato a little bit. But I’ve done side by side tests and I find they’re just fine like this. But you can add a little bit if you want.
• And on a quick side note, if you have the foresight and time to do this sort of meal planning and prep, it’s always a good idea to slice up your potatoes, rinse them out three times and then leave them in the fridge for a day or two. This always just breathes so much life back into them. They get so much harder and a hard potato always makes a better product no matter what you’re doing with them. Trust me, restaurants do this and it is goaded.

So after these six tests, what have we actually learned about making air fried potatoes at home? In my experience, just blanching them in that salty water with a little bit of vinegar and then tossing them in oil seasoning and air frying is the way to go. If you try this with a russet potato or you try it with another method that works really well, please chime in down in the comments. But as it stands right now, blanching, air frying, that’s the way to go.