The Brilliant Trick for the Best Fried Potatoes of Your Life

I eat potatoes year-round. There’s almost nothing they can’t do. Breakfast? Hash browns. Lunch? Fries. Dinner? The possibilities are endless. They can even do dessert, if you’re so inclined. As we enter the cooler months, my potato consumption is about to ramp up. And I was recently reminded of a technique that makes cooking potatoes of all kinds almost foolproof: Start potatoes in the microwave. 

The microwave is subjected to no small amount of disrespect in the kitchen; it’s shunted to the side as a tool of the lazy or unrefined cook. There are few bigger mistakes you can make than turning your back on your microwave. It can do so much, so well. It has saved my cakes more than once, for example. It can also ensure that potatoes are cooked all the way through without overcooking their exteriors. 

Potatoes are very dense. That’s not a problem when you’re tossing them in a stew or under a chicken in the oven where they have plenty of time to cook and you’re not trying to keep them crispy. However, if you’re trying to cook potatoes fast and want them to be crispy (think: fried potatoes on the stovetop) it can be tricky to get them fully cooked without the outside getting too dark and dry. 

The answer is sitting right on your countertop. Starting potatoes in the microwave gives them a bit of a head-start, so when they hit the pan they’re not fully raw. Microwaves cook food by heating up the moisture present inside them. Unlike the heat of the pan, which starts on the exterior and works its way into food, the microwave is heating evenly throughout the food — which is how it cooks food so fast. Adding potatoes that have been par-cooked in the microwave to a hot pan means that by the time they’re perfectly golden-brown on the outside, the center is also perfectly cooked — a feat that’s hard to achieve when you start with raw potatoes that are cooking from the outside in.

I learned this technique from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s book The Food Lab, where he uses the microwave to par-cook potatoes for breakfast hash and rosti. You can use this trick any time you’re making potatoes, as it shortens the cooking time no matter how you’re ultimately using them — but I find it makes the biggest difference in pan-fried potatoes.

1. Prep the potatoes as you normally would for your recipe, peeling and cutting as necessary as if you were going to proceed straight to the cooking step.
2. Place the potatoes in a single layer (or as close as you can get) on a microwave-safe plate and cover them with a lightly damp paper towel. This will protect them from drying out in the microwave. 
3. Microwave on high until the potatoes are slightly softened. They do not need to be fully cooked — just heated enough to start the cooking process. Timing depends on the volume of potatoes you’re cooking and the power of your microwave. It takes me 5 to 6 minutes of cooking time for about 1 pound of potatoes. 
4. Proceed with cooking as you normally would. Marvel at the speed and perfect golden crisp on your potatoes.

• Try it with all kinds of potatoes. You can do this with all types of potatoes, and even sweet potatoes.
• Size and shape affects cook time. Larger pieces of potato will need slightly longer to soften in the microwave, for example, and a big, dense pile of shredded potatoes will also take little longer than diced potatoes that are less compressed.
• It works with both peeled and unpeeled potatoes. Choose your own adventure.
• Use an oven mitt when removing them from the microwave. Five or six minutes in the microwave will get a plate ripping hot, so proceed with caution.