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This Easy Baked Potato Recipe produces the perfect baked potato from the oven—crispy skin, fluffy inside! This foolproof method delivers restaurant-quality results every time without the use of foil.
🥔 Whether you prefer classic butter and sour cream, loaded with bacon and cheese, or healthy options like Greek yogurt and chives, these perfectly baked potatoes are the ideal canvas for any topping combination!
My 2 Best Tips For Making This Easy Baked Potato Recipe
Perfect Crispy Skin: Don’t skip the second baking session! The double-baking technique is the secret to creating the irresistibly crispy exterior while keeping the inside light and fluffy.
Apply Oil and Salt While Hot: Brushing the olive oil and sprinkling salt immediately after the first bake, while the potato skin is still hot, helps the seasonings adhere better and creates a more flavorful, crispier skin.
🩷 Melissa
You may not think baking potatoes is rocket science, but I will say it’s somewhat of an art! That’s why I wanted to collect and share my best tips for how to bake a potato to perfection.
We don’t want any dry, crumbly insides or mushy skins up in here. I firmly believe the perfect baked potato has a slightly crispy and salty exterior with a fluffy, moist inside.
We love baked potatoes with butter, green onions or chives, more salt, and I’ll even turn them into the meal by putting cheese and broccoli or adding chili to the potatoes.
Easy Baked Potato Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 Potatoes, about 5-8 ounces each
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- Salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°. Wash and scrub your potatoes clean. Poke each potato with a fork a few times to allow steam to release while cooking.
- Place potatoes directly on a baking rack set inside a baking sheet and place them in the oven.
- Bake until the center of the potato reaches 205° to 212°F. This will be roughly 35-45 minutes depending on the size of the potatoes.
- Remove from the oven and use a pastry brush to coat each potato in a thin coat of olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and then flip them over and brush the other side with oil and sprinkle with salt.
- Bake the potatoes for an additional 10 minutes to crisp the skin.
- Remove the potatoes from the oven, cut a small X on the top of each potato, and then, using two hands (be careful, they are hot), gently press the potatoes inward so that they "bloom" from the X.
Notes
- Use your favorite Russet or Idaho potatoes for this recipe. You can use what you like best, but Russet potatoes are known for being extra fluffy inside.
- These were medium sized potatoes that came in a 10 pound bag. If you are using the large “baking” potatoes, be sure to add at least a half an hour, if not more, to the cooking time.
- The classic combo with a juicy steak
- A simple fresh salad
- Hearty chili
- Or a baked potato bar with all the toppings you can imagine – everyone picks their own!
Nutrition
How to Make a Baked Potato
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 400°F. Wash your potatoes and dry them off. Poke each potato with a fork a few times to allow steam to release while cooking.
Step 2: Place potatoes directly on the baking rack. Bake until the center of the potato reaches between 205 and 212°F, about 35-45 minutes.
Step 3: Remove from the oven and brush each potato in olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and then flip them over and brush the other side with oil and sprinkle with salt.
Step 4: Bake the potatoes for an additional 10 minutes to crisp the skin. Remove from the oven, cut a small X into the top of each potato, and then gently press them inward to open up the inside for toppings!
Popular Substitutions & Variations
- Baked Sweet Potatoes: For a healthier twist, swap out russet potatoes for sweet potatoes. They have a natural sweetness that pairs well with both savory and sweet toppings.
- Loaded Baked Potatoes: Top your baked potato with classic toppings like sour cream, cheddar cheese, chives, and crispy bacon for a hearty meal.
- Vegan Options: Skip dairy and meat toppings. Instead, load your potato with vegan alternatives like dairy-free sour cream, vegan cheese, and sautéed vegetables.
- Herb and Garlic Potatoes: Season your potatoes with fresh herbs like rosemary or thyme and roasted garlic for a fragrant and flavorful twist.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, yes, yes! The foil will trap the heat in and essentially steam the potato instead of roasting it. And trust me, you want it roasted because that’s what crisps up the skin and makes it SO good. Just follow the steps in the recipe, and I promise you’ll never go back to making baked potatoes in foil again!
Russets are generally considered the best potato for baking because of their thick skin that can get nice and crisp and their high starch content, which lends to that great fluffy texture inside that we want.
POKE THOSE POTATOES! I had one explode and it was a mess to clean up and I’m just grateful it happened when the oven door was shut!
Microwaves are good for reheating food, but they heat very unevenly, causing the heat to get too high and pressure to build. The potato cell walls actually burst and release starch molecules that glue together the broken cell walls. (See? It IS a little more science-y than you’d think!) This results in an unevenly cooked potato that is gummy in the middle. Yuck. So, it can be done in a pinch, but I wouldn’t recommend for all the time.
How Long To Bake Potatoes
See the chart below for how long to bake potatoes at oven temperatures of 325°, 350°, 375°, and 400°.
The internal temperature of baked potatoes is generally 205° to 212°F.
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Did you make this recipe? Leave a ⭐️ review and share it on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest!
My mom use to make baked red potatoes on the oven rack, no foil, with our weekend meals. It has been so long since I’ve done it this way, I had forgotten how long to bake them! She cooked hers at 350°, so I’m assuming about 1 hr and 45 mins. I hope I’m right!
You’ll love it! I think that sounds about right for cooking time though it depends a whole lot on the size of potato! ENJOY!
“1 potato per person”?? I don’t think so. LOL! I have these in the oven right now. Instead of salt I sprinkled on Mama Garlic by Frontier (love that stuff!). Thank you for posting this!
Thank you for this recipe. We just tried it when we had company over and we all loved them!
I cook my potatoes like this all the time. I just pour a small amount of oil in my hand and start rubbing it on. I use kosher salt and I don’t bother putting them directly on the rack of the oven. I just put them on my pan and pop them in. The whole reason why this works is that when you wrap them in foil you are actually steaming them. Doing it with oil actually roasts them and it makes sense. You do it that way with every other vegetable when roasting. Why not a potato? 🙂 Growing up my mom would pop them in the oven with no oil or foil. They would come out shriveled up and dry. It was probably why we would scoop out the inside and give dad the potato skin. 🙂
Just what I was looking for! Fixing these tonight!
We have them for dinner all the time. We top ours with bacon. What isn’t better with bacon?
I know it’s not the healthiest but I love to dip baked potatoes in a mixture of olive oil and pressed garlic.
That’s very healthy. And yum
I have been cooking potatoes like this for years. My favourite topping is Garlic butter, Colslaw, grated cheese and topped with sour cream. Yummy
Putting Lawreys Seasoned Salt on the potato will make them outstanding too. I cook mine at 475 because I like really crunchy potato peelings.
Mmmm that sounds fabulous!
I eat potatoes as a main dish a lot. I like them better than the meat. I will definitely try your method next time!