As part of our Year of Less we aren't eating out for an entire year. (The Rules state that we may go to a restaurant if invited as part of a social occasion. Note to all of my real-life friends: please for the love of all that is slathered in special secret sauces, please hold your next birthday at a restaurant. Please....)
Anyways, sometimes a girl just needs some french fries, ya know? Some really good crispy on the outside but soft on the inside and just a tiny bit too salty french fries. Here's how I get my fry fix without leaving home.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice your potatoes into strips. I really like red potatoes for this, but any potato you have on hand will work.
Now this is the secret to really good oven fries: Drizzle the potatoes with both olive oil and melted butter. I've tried them with just oil, and just butter, but it's the combination that makes them so super awesomely good. Trust me on this.
Sprinkle them with a coarse salt like kosher salt or sea salt. Use a fair bit of salt. Potatoes need salt.
Now stir all your butter and oil and salt and potatoes so that the potatoes are evenly coated. Grease a cookie sheet with a tiny bit of olive oil and lay your potatoes out on the cookie sheets. A little bit of overlap is okay, but try to have only one layer of potatoes so that they can crisp up nice. You might need two cookie sheets.
And I know that some of you are going to think to yourself "the potatoes are greased, so I don't need oil on the pan" but you really do, because if you don't oil the pan all your delicious crispy edges will end up stuck to the pan instead of your french fry. I always regret it if I don't take a moment to grease the pan.
Bake the fries at 400 degrees, turning and flipping and shaking them a bit every 5 minutes until they are golden brown on the outside and soft inside. This will normally take a total of about 20-30 minutes.
Taste (when they aren't mouth-burningly hot anymore) to make sure they have enough salt, and serve. Enjoy!
Please let me know if you try these. I would love to know what you think!
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Wow, I LOVE this post. I need to try these ASAP.
ReplyDeleteIeva
They look yummy! We might have to try them tonight. :) Thanks for the tips.
ReplyDeletesounds DELISH.. will give them a try tonight!
ReplyDeleteI think I will now have to go dig potatoes from the garden and add these to my supper menu for tonight!!
ReplyDeleteI need to try coating the pan next time- mine always stick. I'll also try stirring and flipping every 5 minutes- I usually only do it once and they're never crispy. Thanks for the tips!
ReplyDeleteI always line my pans with parchment paper so my potatoes don't stick.
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly, just love your posts, I read every single one. Just wondering... what do you use to get such uniform-looking fries. Are you just that talented with a knife? Or do you have a trick?
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't have a trick. Although I wouldn't describe myself as particularly skilled with a knife. Maybe they just look uniform in the picture?
DeleteOh they look Yummy! We love oven chips here but they are never quite like proper chips (fries to Americans, lol). Will be giving this a whirl!
ReplyDeleteYummmmm- drool!! Thanks for the tips, I usually make fries, but I will try the butter and oil combo for extra crispiness:)
ReplyDeleteHaha, I love your birthday party plea at the beginning of the post! Too funny! I don't remember how I stumbled across your blog, but I am thoroughly enjoying your posts, especially about this "Year of Less" endeavour. Very inspiring.
ReplyDeleteWe did one month of not eating out and it was fantastic.... Though difficult! I'd like to try it for a year, what a wonderful idea! These froes look amazing. I am going to try them when we get home (on vacation now). Funny thing is, we never eat out on vacation.... So why do we at home????
ReplyDeleteWe LOVE to make sweet potatoe fries. Slice them up the same way, line the pan with foil (we like to be able to just throw it away afterwards), then spray the pan with olive oil cooking spray, sprinkle salt liberally on the greased parts, lay out the fries and do it again, spray the fries and sprinkle them with salt too. 400 for about 20-30 minutes, depending on the potatoes' thickness. This is our favorite and much healthier than frying. Soooooo yummy.
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ReplyDeleteJust finished trying these out and they were yummy! The kids just loved them too. Thanks for posting! Added this as a serving suggestion on my blog :) http://theheartlandhomemaker.blogspot.com/2012/08/easy-cheesy-bacon-ranch-burgers.html
ReplyDeleteNext time, add rosemary to your oil and salt. Or dill and season salt. Now I need to dig a couple potatoes...
ReplyDeleteTotally trying the olive oil/butter combination. What a good idea!
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this! I have tried repeatedly to make fries from scratch, but can never get them crispy. I'm guessing it is the shaking and turning every five minutes that makes a difference - I will so have to do this! :)
ReplyDeleteAs for missing secret sauces, I highly recommend you check out Food.com - most trademark restaurant sauces have either been published somewhere at least once or have been flawlessly recreated by very talented cooks. I've found recipes for Dinosaur BBQ sauce, Chi-Chis corn cake and all kinds of other awesome things and it great to be able to make them at home!
As an Irishwoman in New Zealand my fry fix is a mixture of oil, butter, and either lard or beef dripping and the end result soaked in malt vinegar and liberally salted! The kiwis think me preposterous! I'm sure the various regions have their specialties, the French would have theirs fried in goose fat, the Belgians dipped in mayo and the Spanish with some paprika - I like them all! Your photos make my mouth water !!!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly ... another trick I found really worked was soaking your cut potato in a bowl of ice water to remove some of the extra starch before coating them in oil ... I will try to remember to grease the pan though as ... yes, they do still stick otherwise!
ReplyDeleteAlso, good on you for the year of no eating out - after looking at our bank account last night I think this may be a great challenge for our family. It's amazing how much money can disappear from just a couple dinners out! Thank you for the incentive!
I also think if you can pre-heat your pans you'll have less "stickage"! I do a lot of roasted veg in the winter and find this really helps and you may not need to oil the pans quite so much.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I make crispy oven fries much the same way. We have learned that if you put just a little oil on the pan then put the pan in the hot oven for like 10ish minutes then put the fries on it, they don't stick at all! And it makes a sweet sizzle noise when you add the potatoes! :)
ReplyDeleteI've never made these in particular, but I've done versions of this and I thought I'd add, these are really good with garlic and rosemary or other herbs and pepper or if you thinly slice some onions to cook along with them.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to try your tip of both oil and butter, curious how it will turn out !
ReplyDeleteI have yet to master homemade french fries. Mine never taste as good as fries you get in the restaurant. Your recipe looks wonderful and so easy. You've inspired me to try again with this recipe.
ReplyDeleteYour fries look good. I may have to make some this week. :) I tried a recipe similar to this at the beginning of July that turned out great, but they just used oil so I'll have to try the combination. The recipe I tried recommended to soak the potatoes in cold water beforehand, which I think really helped with the crispiness, and getting the seasoning to stick to the fries. It also called to bake the fries on baking racks set into cookie sheets, which was awesome because it required no flipping. :) Here's my post about it if you want to check out my pics. http://bsnovelwritingblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/pinterest-and-soap-successes.html
ReplyDeleteYou can also mix the oil with a beaten egg white, to make your fries more crispy! Have a nice day!
ReplyDeleteI love where there is skin still left on the fries - these look awesome!
ReplyDeleteI make fries at home the same way, but haven't tried adding butter. No I will have to do so! We love our homemade fries dipped in ranch dressing! :)
ReplyDeletemmmm.... I like to dip mine in ranch dressing too!
DeleteMade these last night and they turned out quite well. too salty, but that was my fault. i was having BBQ issues so i didn't get them turned quite as often as i would have liked, but they still crisped up pretty well. Thanks so much, these were a lot tastier than the pre-done oven fries i would normally have made.
ReplyDeleteMaking these for dinner tonight and they just came out of the oven. Mmmmmm, so good. Thanks for sharing this recipe. I've tried homemade fries before and they never turned out this good. This is one recipe I'll be pinning so I won't forget it.
ReplyDeleteI made these like two days after I read your post. Oil AND butter? Wasn't sure, but it totally works! I think I added too much, so I ended up having to bake them longer, but they were really great!
ReplyDeleteSame as Rachel. 20 minutes? I don't think so. It was more like 45 minutes and then I had to put them under the broiler just to brown them and they still came out half floppy. They tasted good, but not sure where I went wrong.
ReplyDeletehmmm...Sorry they didn't turn out! I can't explain that. Are you sure your oven was 400 degrees? I couldn't imagine cooking something at 400 degrees for 45 minutes and not having it burnt black!
DeleteI will have to do this - my Dh & kids will think they are in the wrong house...LOL
ReplyDeleteIs this normal? I preheated the oven and stuck the fries right in there and they're making this sizzling sound.
ReplyDeleteSizzling is normal. That's how they get crispy!
DeleteThank you! I wasn't sure since this was my first time making homemade fries.
DeleteI love how you make everything easy. These are in the oven right now and I can't wait. I've made them before but never with olive oil AND butter... sounds yum!
ReplyDeleteI confess that I make these way too often. They are delicious! I did find that if I don't pat the cut potatoes dry with a paper towel before adding the oil and butter, it takes a significantly longer amount of time to cook! Love your blog!
ReplyDeleteI just found your blog by Googling for natural cough remedies. - So far so good on your cough syrup of honey and cider vinegar!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE all of the info you have here and can see that I will spend many an hour perusing all your old posts! *GRIN*
Anyway, these oven fries look SO good! Going to try them soon! A great condiment for these is curry ketchup. I love the German import you can buy on Amazon, (Delikat or somesuch?) but it's also super easy to make at home. - Just add curry powder to ketchup to taste! - Delish!
Made these tonight. I remembered seeing the recipe when I was following your Year of Less journey & came back to look it up. Yum! They go really fast. Too fast. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteOh, yum. Made these for dinner tonight and they were SO GOOD! I had no idea you could make fries this delicious yourself at home. They tasted like NYF fries - so good. Next time I'll add a little bit less olive oil and a bit less salt - but the butter must stay. It makes such a difference! Thank-you! (I've had this pinned for a long time - so glad I finally made them!)
ReplyDeleteI was wondering I don't have any olive oil can I use vegetable instead?
ReplyDeleteHow much butter would you recommend?
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