The 3 Secrets You Need To Know To Make The Best Baked Potatoes

A great baked potato can be truly sublime, but making a great baked potato isn’t always easy. If you’re not careful, your baked potatoes can turn out undercooked, overcooked, starchy, gummy, dense, or worse!

But lately I’ve been craving a really good baked potato, one that’s impossibly fluffy on the inside and deliciously crispy on the outside. So I decided to dig around online to find out if there was some sort of secret to achieving baked potatoes of that caliber.

It turns out that there isn’t just one secret to better baked potatoes—there are three! I’ll be sharing those secrets with you in today’s post, and then I’ll show you how to put them into practice with a step-by-step guide to making the best baked potatoes ever! :-)

3 Secrets To Better Baked Potatoes

1. Slice Instead Of Poke

Before baking potatoes, most people poke a few holes in the skin to vent enough steam to prevent them from bursting. But slicing instead of poking allows more steam to escape, resulting in fluffier potatoes that will be easier to cut open.

2. Bake Them Longer

Most recipes recommend baking potatoes at a high temperature for about an hour or so. But if you bake them at a slightly lower temperature for a while longer, you’ll end up with a potato skin so crispy it’s almost cracker-like! (Yum!)

3. Put Them Back In The Oven

After the potatoes are done baking, one extra step will ensure the insides turn out extra light and fluffy. Slice deeper into the potatoes, squish the sides a bit to expose more of the insides, then put them back into the oven for 10 more minutes.

Now that we all know what the “secrets” are and why they work, it’s time to put them all together and make the best ever baked potatoes! :-)

How To Make The World’s Best Baked Potatoes – British “Jacket” Potatoes

Step 1 – Prep

Rinse any dirt off the outside of your potatoes, then pat them dry with a paper towel.

Use a sharp knife to slice a cross shape, about 1/4” deep, into the top of each potato.

After slicing, arrange the potatoes on a baking sheet.

Step 2 – Bake

Put the sheet of potatoes into a preheated 400°F oven. Bake large potatoes for 2 hours, and smaller potatoes for about 90 minutes.

Step 3 – Second Bake

Once the potatoes are done, remove the baking sheet from the oven. Use a knife to cut deeper into the lengthwise slices you made in Step 1, without cutting all the way through.

Using oven mitts or heat-resistant gloves, carefully squish each potato to expose more of the insides. Return the baking sheet of potatoes to the oven for another 10 minutes.

Step 4 – Serve

Finally, finish up your perfectly light and crispy-skinned baked potatoes by adding butter, salt, and pepper. And don’t forget to top them with your favorite baked potato fixings! :-)

What do you like to put on your baked potatoes?