Oven Baked Garlic Parmesan Potato French Fries Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why do you soak fries in water before baking? ›

This step is commonly missed in making homemade fries, but it might be one of the most important! Soaking your fries in cold water helps remove excess starch, which allows for crispy, golden fries! The cold water bath also helps the french fries retain their shape and contributes to a fluffy inside.

Keep the oven shut as much as possible to reach cooking temperature faster. Use a perforated sheet tray. This helps hot air circulate more easily among the fries, increasing crispness. Don't thaw your fries before baking.

There are many advantages of baked fries over fried fries. Baked fries are lower in calories and fat, and they're also much easier to make at home. When you fry potatoes, a lot of the potato's natural nutrients are lost in the process. But when you bake potatoes, they retain more of their vitamins and minerals.

Refined peanut oil is the best oil to use for making french fries. You can also use canola or safflower oil. Additionally, restaurant fries are so crispy because, among other things, they use old oil continuously.

The main reasons to cut the potatoes and pre-soak in water are: To allow the excess starches and sugars to be removed from the outer surface of the fry strips AND to keep the potatoes from browning prematurely from exposure to air. Covering in water helps the potato from turning a dark color.

Place them in a large bowl and cover with cold water. Allow them to soak, 2 to 3 hours. (You can also stick them in the fridge and let them soak overnight.) When you're ready to make the fries, drain off the water and lay the potatoes on 2 baking sheets lined with paper towels.

Reheating Instructions

Fries / Tots / Brussels: Heat oven to 350F. Spray or lightly coat a baking sheet with olive oil. Remove your side from its container and spread evenly across a baking sheet. Bake for 7 minutes and remove.

Add herbs and spices for extra flavor.

"Add a bit of gourmet flair to your fries by sprinkling them with some garlic powder, fresh rosemary, seasoned salt, or fresh virgin-olive [oil] or truffle oil," Koeppe said. As well as adding flavor, a drizzle of oil can also help keep fries from sticking together in the oven.

Blanching. Another restaurant trick is to blanch the fries in water, then freeze them, which allows more of the potato's moisture to escape, thus producing a crispier fry.

Restaurants fry french fries twice

One of the secrets to how fast food restaurants make their french fries crispy is that they double fry them. The result is a french fry that's soft inside and crispy outside.

How do you tell if french fries are done in the oven? ›

Bake until very golden brown and crunchy, about 40 to 45 minutes. You don't need to turn them at all. Serve warm with the fry sauce or sauce(s) of your choosing (see how-to in post).

Don't overfill your baking tray and rack

Frozen fries are full of water so you definitely don't want too much steam in the oven which makes your fries soggy and limpy. Too many trays on the oven racks decrease airflow essential for crispiness, too!

And the clear winners are Idaho or russet potatoes.

These potatoes are dense and have less moisture, which is key to avoiding soggy fries. You can also use Yukon gold potatoes, which are an all-purpose potato that can be used for frying. You should avoid waxy potatoes like red-skinned, new, or fingerling potatoes.

The suppliers we work with first peel, cut and blanche the potatoes. They then dry, partially fry and quickly freeze the fries for our restaurants. Once in our kitchens, we cook them in our canola-blend oil so you can have them crispy and hot—just the way you like them.

Improperly cooked french fries are limp, greasy, or soggy and often over-browned. These problems all arise from the improper handling of starch and sugar when exposed to high heat.

Give them a cold water bath: Once your potatoes are chopped, toss them into a large bowl. Then cover the potatoes completely with cold water and let them soak for at least 30 minutes (or up to overnight). This will help to rinse off the excess starch and help the potatoes crisp up beautifully in the oven.

Soaking potatoes in water helps remove excess starch. Excess starch can inhibit the potatoes from cooking evenly as well as creating a gummy or sticky texture on the outside of your potatoes. Cold water is used because hot water would react with the starch activating it, making it harder to separate from the potatoes.

Why use salt water for soaking potatoes? There's moisture naturally found in potatoes, and moisture is drawn to higher concentrations of salt. (This is a process called osmosis.) So, if you put the potatoes in a salt water bath, that will help draw out some of their moisture, resulting in crispier fries.

When a small amount of vinegar is added to the soaking water before frying, it can help impart a tangy flavor to the fries without making them taste overly vinegary. The acid in the vinegar can also help to slightly break down the surface of the potatoes, aiding in the development of a crispier texture during frying.