Best-Ever Baked Potatoes: This Recipe Bakes Them in 2 Pounds of Salt and Preps in 10 Minutes

Whenever I think I must know every single way to cook potatoes, I seem to find a new method I just have to try. From duck fat to mayonnaise, the range of ingredients that can make a roasted spud crispier and more flavorful are endless. Most recently, I came across a recipe that suggests baking potatoes in two pounds of salt to make a well-seasoned, buttery delicacy. (Don’t worry you can reuse the salt later on). Keep reading to learn more about salt baked potatoes and what happened when I gave this method a try!

What does baking potatoes on a bed of salt do?

Of course, seasoning potatoes with salt and pepper before roasting is a no-brainer. However, the experts at D’Artagnan note that baking potatoes in a bed of salt traps in the juices — creating a cooking environment that roasts and steams the spuds at the same time. This allows the skin to become crispy, while the inside develops creamy texture.

How to make salt baked potatoes 

This Salt Baked Potatoes recipe, from food influencer Carolina Gelen, calls for using an inexpensive brand of Kosher salt like Morton since you’ll be needing a couple pounds of it. She also notes that the cooked salt can be reused afterwards to bake other meat or veg. “Reuse the salt for the same purpose, for up to one week (if using egg white in the recipe) rehydrating it as needed. After that, use it as a scrub for pots and pans or as a pie weight,” she writes in her Instagram caption.

Here’s how to make salt baked potatoes at home. Also, check out our guide on how to reheat a baked potato to enjoy those leftover spuds the next day.

Salted Baked Potatoes

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A post shared by Carolina Gelen (@carolinagelen)

Ingredients:

• 1½ lbs. petite gold potatoes or another small waxy potato type
• 4 to 5 cups (2 to 2½ lbs.) kosher salt 
• 3 to 4 egg whites or ½ cup water, plus more as needed 
• 3 Tbs. fresh herbs such as rosemary and thyme

Directions:

• Yield: 2 servings

1. Combine salt, herbs, and egg whites (or water) in bowl. Mix until it reaches texture of wet sand. Add more water or egg whites if necessary. 
2. Heat oven to 400°F. Evenly spread ⅓ of mixture on skillet, cake pan or baking sheet. Pat it down using your hands.
3. Place potatoes over salt, then cover with remaining ⅔ of mixture. Tightly pack salt using your hands, covering all potatoes.
4. Bake potatoes 1 hour, or until salt looks light brown and it’s hard to touch. Knock salt off potatoes using rolling pin, meat pounder or any other tool. Let the potatoes cool for three minutes.
5. Serve potatoes on platter and enjoy!

My taste test

Making this recipe myself, I got lucky: using 4 cups of kosher salt and four egg whites did the trick for creating the wet sand texture, and I didn’t need to add any extra liquid. So, prepping the potatoes before baking them in the oven took me less than 10 minutes.

I could taste the saltiness from the potato skin in my first bite, and the flesh was fluffy with a starchy, buttery flavor. It reminded me of steakhouse-style baked potatoes, where there’s flakes of salt on the outside that provide a crunchy texture — which in this case is all thanks to the bed of salt, of course.

I won’t be making this recipe every time I’m craving a baked potato as it requires a lot of salt. However, I’ll keep it in my repertoire for dinner parties or special occasions where I have plenty of salt to spare for a delicious treat.

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Keep reading for more mouthwatering potato recipes!

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Wow Your Guests (Without the Work!) With a Trendy Mashed Potato Bar

Rachael Ray’s Secrets to the Best-Ever Smashed Potatoes — Crispy, Lemony + So Easy