This is the secret to the perfect baked potato

TERRIFIC TUBERS

From left: Hot Honey Baked Sweet Potatoes, Caramelized Kimchi Baked Potatoes and Aglio e Olio Baked Potatoes. CHRISTOPHER TESTANI — THE NEW YORK TIMES

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By Eric Kim

The New York Times

Turns out, the baked potato has always been big and great.

In 1909, Hazen Titus, the dining car superintendent on the Northern Pacific Railway, had a vision: Having learned of a surplus of oversize spuds, he’d ordered them up and placed them on his menu. His “Great Big Baked Potato” became a hit, to be ordered, appropriately, on a train route of the same name.

These days, a long Idaho tuber, split down the middle like a hot dog bun to reveal fluffy white starch, a pat of butter nestled into the left side, is still big and — more important — great, with its perfect creamy-crunchy-fresh combo of sour cream, chives, cheese and bacon.

I spent the past year baking pounds and pounds of potatoes to come to a simple conclusion: The baked potato is worth celebration. There may be no better (and easier) way to gather than by building on a reliable but never boring base and delighting in each turn of the flavor wheel.

Here are my tips for success:

1. Set up a bar (and really load up on toppings)

As chef Vishwesh Bhatt writes in his 2022 cookbook-memoir, “I Am From Here”: “Potatoes are the great equalizer for many cuisines.” Every culture has a baked potato. Which is to say, it’s a generous vessel, ready to hold just about anything your guests pile on, buffet-style. You can lay out whatever ingredients you love, or, better still, consider these three fun new recipes as a starting point.

An aglio e olio baked potato, for instance, lets the classic Italian combination of garlic and oil find its most melodic expression.

Let bold, well-fermented kimchi step in for bacon in an otherwise-classic loaded baked potato. Cooked down with butter and sesame oil, kimchi mellows its sharp, tangy edges while concentrating its salty savoriness.

And thrill to the joys of a perfect sweet potato, topped with whipped goat cheese and hot honey. Your guests may ask if this is dessert or part of the meal — to which you can say, “Yes!”

2. Work ahead

Whether you choose to serve all three potatoes, focus on just one or do your own baked potato thing entirely, you can do much of the toppings prep ahead of time so that on Party Day, you the host can focus on a frankly thankless task: baking the potatoes perfectly before guests arrive.

Then, while they’re in the oven, set out a few small dishes and bowls with all the accouterments that make baked potatoes so good: fresh herbs and alliums; chunks of salty, hard cheeses (with a grater or two) and shredded soft cheeses (like cheddar and mozzarella). Don’t forget the pats of butter, and to add a little this and that. Think salted nuts, sour cream, extra-virgin olive oil, flaky sea salt, crushed red pepper and a black pepper grinder for good measure.

3. Bake your potatoes naked

No salt, no oil, no foil. According to the Idaho Potato Commission, jacketing a baked potato in aluminum foil locks in moisture, resulting in a soggy end result. A potato needs to breathe.

In my many tests, I found that dry-baking on a sheet pan — the method used by my colleague Priya Krishna and her mother, Ritu, in their Indian-ish baked potato recipe — resulted in the fluffiest, purest-tasting spuds. Doing so gives the potatoes time to slowly cook in their own moisture while yielding crispy edges. Then, a critical period of rest — 15 minutes out of the oven — lets them finish steaming, their own gentle heat tenderizing and fluffing up the starchy flesh within.

Unless you can get lovely fresh potatoes from a farm or co-op, it’s worth skipping the old, bigger russets on your supermarket shelves. Gold and red potatoes are not only cuter, coming in smaller, more manageable sizes, but they often taste better, too.

Nostalgia and carbohydrate, a baked potato is ready to be stuffed with your hopes and dreams — and then some.

RECIPES

Hot Honey Baked Sweet Potatoes

Goat cheese and honey are a tried-and-true dream flavor pairing, but goat-cheese whipped cream and hot honey turn simple baked sweet potatoes into a veritable party. The combination of rosemary and nuts atop these plush orange babies is reminiscent of bar nuts. — Eric Kim

Yield: 8 servings. Total time: 1 hour 10 minutes.

Ingredients

8 small to medium sweet potatoes, scrubbed (about 3 pounds)

1/4 cup clover honey

1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne

2 teaspoons hot sauce

Salt and black pepper

4 to 5 ounces goat cheese or blue cheese, softened

1/4 cup heavy cream

4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pats

1/2 cup roasted, salted nuts, coarsely chopped

Finely chopped rosemary or sage, for topping

directions

Heat oven to 425 degrees and line a large rimmed sheet pan with foil. Pierce the potatoes all over with a fork and place them along the edges of the pan (where it gets the hottest).

Bake until tender and reduced in size, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. A fork should pierce through the largest potato’s center easily. Remove the pan from the oven and leave on the counter to finish steaming, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine the honey and cayenne pepper. Heat the mixture over medium, stirring occasionally, until bubbling. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until slightly reduced, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, stir in the hot sauce and season with black pepper. Set aside to cool slightly.

To a large bowl, add the goat cheese, heavy cream and a pinch of salt. Whisk the mixture by hand or with an electric mixer until smooth, thick and the consistency of sour cream, 1 to 2 minutes.

When the potatoes have cooled slightly, slice each in half lengthwise without cutting through the bottom. Then, using both hands, gently pinch the bottoms up to push out some of the potato flesh. Season with salt.

To assemble, top each potato with a pat of butter, a dollop of goat-cheese whipped cream, some nuts, a generous drizzle of hot honey and a sprinkle of rosemary.—

Caramelized Kimchi Baked Potatoes

In this otherwise classic baked potato, kimchi is stepping in for bacon. It’s cooked down in a hot pan with butter and sesame oil to mellow its sharp, tangy edges while concentrating its salty savoriness. A pinch of sugar, though optional, helps the kimchi caramelize. Piled high on a fluffy baked potato, the umami-rich kimchi tastes fabulous with melted extra-sharp cheddar and cooling sour cream. With such simple ingredients, it helps to really pile them on for maximum flavor impact. — Eric Kim

Yield: 8 servings. Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes.

Ingredients

8 small to medium gold or red potatoes, scrubbed (about 3 pounds)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 packed cups kimchi, finely chopped

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

Pinch of sugar

Salt

2 cups shredded extra-sharp cheddar or mozzarella

Sour cream and thinly sliced scallions or dill fronds, for topping

directions

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Pierce the potatoes all over with a fork and place them along the edges of a large rimmed sheet pan (where it gets the hottest).

Bake until tender, about 1 hour. A fork should pierce through the largest potato’s center easily. Remove the pan from the oven and leave on the counter to finish steaming, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a large skillet over medium-high. Add the butter, kimchi, sesame oil and sugar, if using, and cook without stirring for 1 minute. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the kimchi juices start sticking to the pan and the kimchi wilts down and its edges brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.

When the potatoes have cooled slightly, slice each in half lengthwise and crosswise without cutting through the bottom. Then, using both hands, gently pinch the bottoms up to push out some of the potato flesh. (If you’d like, fluff with a fork.) Season with salt.

To assemble, top each potato with 1/4 cup cheese, a pile of the caramelized kimchi, a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of scallions. Serve warm.

Aglio e Olio Baked Potatoes

The classic Italian combination of aglio e olio (garlic and oil) finds a melodic expression in these Parmesan-festooned baked potatoes. Underneath the fluffy mounds of cheese is garlicky mayonnaise, which, when stirred into a hot pillowy spud, brings a comforting reminder of potato salad. In this recipe, it’s the little things that make a big flavor impact: Use fresh parsley or chives, crushed red pepper that smells fruity and looks jewel-bright, black peppercorns that you’ve toasted and cracked yourself (if you have the patience) and a flavorful extra-virgin olive oil that’s bold, bright or peppery. As in the simple but impactful pasta dish aglio e olio, these baked potatoes pack the biggest punch when each piece plays its part. — Eric Kim

Yield: 8 servings. Total time: 1 hour 10 minutes.

Ingredients

8 small to medium red or gold potatoes, scrubbed (about 3 pounds)

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 large or 2 small garlic cloves, finely grated

Kosher salt and black pepper

Crushed red pepper

Extra-virgin olive oil (see tip)

1 (1-ounce) chunk Parmesan or Pecorino Romano

1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley or chives

Flaky sea salt, for topping (optional)

directions

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Pierce the potatoes all over with a fork and place them along the edges of a large rimmed sheet pan (where it gets the hottest).

Bake until tender, about 1 hour. A fork should pierce through the largest potato’s center easily. Remove the pan from the oven and leave on the counter to finish steaming, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise and garlic. Season with kosher salt, black pepper and red pepper and stir.

To assemble, dollop each potato with some of the mayonnaise mixture. Using a very fine grater (such as Microplane), finely and generously grate the cheese over the potatoes so it piles high. Top with the parsley, some flaky sea salt for crunch, if using, and more red pepper. Serve warm.

TIP: Since olive oil is one of the main flavors in this recipe, be sure to buy one labeled “extra-virgin,” which often signifies that it comes from olives that were cold-pressed or cold-extracted, and that the oil is flavorful. Other features to look for: a dark glass or opaque container, a harvest date that’s ideally no more than a year ago, a single country of origin, a designation of authenticity like PDO or DOP or flavor labels like “bold,” “bright” and “peppery.”