I was told that of the three options for flagging, spam, abusive, or I just don’t like it; I just don’t like it, removes it from your view only. I hope so, because that is what I have been using. That way a certain person doesn’t ruin the entire thread for me, but it is still there for the ones who don’t mind correcting the *******.

Tigereye, comments are like TV shows. You can also ignore what you don't like and just move on.

I have taken the shortcut of wrapping 2 washed russets in paper towels and microwaving them for 5 or 6 minutes and then baking them in a hot oven for another 30 minutes with excellent results.

I used to love potatoes that were wrapped in foil whole and grilled until soft. It took forever but the flavor was incredible. Way better than plain baked in an oven. I wonder why I haven't made them for so long?

I've never been a fan of potatoes cooked in the microwave. Oven is best.

I don't know why ATK would say that a potato baked with oil would be dense and gummy or whatever it was that Elmer said. I always cook mine at 400 degrees for about an hour with olive oil and kosher salt and they come out soft and fluffy every time. If you take that potato and do not eat it and let it cool and put it in the refrigerator, and try to eat it the next day, it will not be yummy and soft and fluffy, it will be moist and dense. I use those for home fries where I dice them and saute' them with onions. OR you can make twice baked potatoes out of them, they are good like that. If you go google searching how to bake a potato, you will find many different methods and I imagine they all work out in the end.

^^ You're right ^^ The oil only affects the skin. A very light coating is all you need. I don't eat the skins but DH does and he says this is very good.

"The oil only affects the skin. "

The professional cooks at Cooks Illustrated who do iterative testing to understand the processes applied disagree.

Elmer, I don't know why you argue with someone's tried and true method of cooking a potato! I really don't care if Cooks Illustrated says so or not! Go buy some potatoes and experiment with them....come back and give your results!

I've switched to baking mine in the air fryer since we bought one. Same preparation as the oven. Wash, dry, prick with a knife a few times, lightly coat the skin with oil and kosher salt. Cook at 350 for 1 hour or so depending on size. I still use the oven if I'm making a big batch of twice baked potatoes to freeze.

Some of my garden potatoes got nipped back by frost after they emerged but they shrugged it off and are now growing fast. I'm looking forward to stealing some new potatoes in June.

ark girl - Objective findings from iterative quantitative tests trying different alternatives are different from subjective opinions or habits. Many people don't understand the difference. I hope you do.

Elmer, unlike you, I actually do things and don't just go google searching for the answer to questions. I will say that Cooks Illustrated is WRONG! I have cooked hundreds of potatoes in the 40 years that I have been cooking. We are answering question from our experience, not from some subjective opinion. Potatoes cooked with oil and salt in the oven DO NOT TURN OUT DENSE AND MOIST! Period, end of story. Why CI said this, I have no idea but they are WRONG!

This thread title made me hungry for a baked potato! Last night I cleaned a couple of nice white potatoes oiled the skins and sprinkled pink salt on them, wrapped them in foil and put them in the oven. It's been a long time since I have made them and I was happy 😊 with the results. Glad the title made me think of it.

I bought the stuff for my twice baked potatoes today, because of this thread. I kept forgetting about them. We will have them this week and then I will have them in the freezer for two more meals.

I've said nothing about other ways of cooking potatoes! I didn't say that cooking it another way was wrong, unlike you telling me that my way was dense and moist(and the wrong way), which it is NOT! I have cooked them plenty of other ways and they all turn out just fine...that is not what I am saying at all! What I am trying to say but you cannot understand what I am trying to say, is that you can cook a potato with oil and kosher salt in the oven and it will not turn out moist and dense! It will be soft and fluffy and dry! I will not continue this head butting with you. If you cannot see the forest for the trees, then so be it! *SMH*

My husband is the one who introduced me to bacon wrapped potatoes. You wrap a slice or two of bacon around the potato and sprinkle with garlic salt. We wrap with foil to keep the oven clean and prevent fires. It's very tasty.

Re potatoes. I pre bake in the microwave finish off in the oven; slice in half and add a bit of oil to crisp up under the broiler. I like a crispy top.. Totally delicious.

Cooks Illustrated got this one wrong IMO. I am aware that they are a highly regarded publication and have a wide following, but not they are not infallible. I read their on-line article. Clearly, they made an error. However, it is only a potato, not anything earth shattering.

I see some great suggestions here as to toppings on a lovely, slightly oiled baked potato.

I don't eat bacon but that idea sounds intriguing. I will make this for DH and see what happens.

Ahh, how we have elevated the lowly potato.

Timely, I just had baked potatoes this weekend, first time in a long time. I did nuke them for a couple of minutes to get a head start then popped it in my oven along with my baked chicken breast. So lovely, what a treat!

I usually do mashed or boiled. There's no such thing as a *bad* potato, I love them any which way.

Jasdip, I do also. Potatoes any way they are fixed are my favorite. When I had all three grandkids over, I used to make OreIda frozen fries on a sheet pan in the oven. The big crinkle ones. My granddaughter and I used to nibble on the leftovers for the rest of the night.

Years ago, I used to peel the potato and then put butter in the palm of my hand and roll the potato around in in until it was heavily coated. I laid them in a small roasting pan ( not touching ) and seasoned with S&P and baked them perhaps an hour. The outside was as crispy as a french fry and the inside was a tender baked potato. I haven't made them in a while but this thread got me thinking that they could be seasoned with herbs and spices and create something quite interesting.

That sounds very interesting, Elizabeth. I've never heard of cooking a potato using that method, but I think I am going to have to try it. Did you use a specific type or size of potato?

Wow, arkansas girl, calm down. It's only a potato. You're pretty worked up over a potato.

Medium to small potatoes work best so the coating does not over brown. If you are making a large number of them, keep adding pats of cold butter to your hand so it goes on thickly.

Since most poke or pierce the potato before baking (a well-advised process.....ever have one explode??), steam is allowed to escape, so an oiled potato comes out with the same interior consistency as a non-oiled one.

you can cook a potato with oil and kosher salt in the oven and it will not turn out moist and dense! It will be soft and fluffy and dry

I don't use kosher salt, just regular, but I oil with olive oil, salt, and the taters were dry and fluffy.

They can...and frequently do :-) Since the argument is that an oiled potato will be dense, gummy or mealy because the oil prevents any steam escaping, poking, piercing or using baked potato nails negates this claim completely.

I've been cooking oiled baked potatoes like this for years and have never had one turn out as anything other than light and fluffy.

Needing to refer to a resource like CI for how to cook a baked potato is similar to needing a recipe for toast. It is a waste of time and energy!!

"....ever have one explode??

Thankfully, I've never had one explode after all these years Not really sure but I've heard older potatoes with thicker skins can be more apt to go boom. I do know people who've had them explode even after piercing. Ugh...not a pleasant cleanup job.

I had a friend who did not use potato nails so she stuck a pie fork into the center of each potato after piercing it all over. She said they baked faster and they had a handy handle for taking them out of the oven. I never tried it. :-)

I had one explode in the oven and that was after I had poked holes in it. Thankfully, the mess wasn't too bad. It was more like the potato split it's skin and the innards oozed out rather than a full on explosion.

Dawn, you were lucky! I actually looked online and had visions of this... :-O

I haven't had one explode, but I always poke with a fork, twice, deep.

OMGosh! Wouldn't that be a fun mess to clean up? I will consider myself lucky to have only had an ooozing potato!

I always plunge a knife into them and make a slit about 1/2 inch deep and one inch long. And I've been baking potatoes the same way for over 40 years, never been a problem with dense or gummy potatoes, they are always light and fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside. I have a feeling that the wrong type of potato might have been used by those who say this happened. We like the skin crispy because we like to eat it. I always scrub it well before coating it with the oil. NO foil - that just steams them, I really get ticked when people cook them wrapped in foil. Of course I don't say anything because that would be impolite.

I was using foil for a while because it just seemed like what everyone did, this was years ago. The potato tasted fine but it seemed like to took way longer to cook with the foil on it.

When I bake sweet potatoes (only a couple of times) they always ooze out on me and make a mess.

Well, now I had to make a baked potato. All I had were Yukon Gold, but they smell good!

I love baked potatoes. Baking them in the oven is great, but takes a lot of time. So now I use my microwave pasta boat--they are moist and delicious. For times when I want a crispier skin, I coat them with olive oil, and sprinkle them with Kosher salt, pepper, and parsley flakes--put them on a plate and nuke in the microwave.

Having done it both ways, I currently think it is worth the oven time, but what is important are your own tastebuds and preferences.

Has anyone ever tried Crash Hot Potatoes. It is a Australian method for baking potatoes. I make them several times a year with some of the 2-3 oz. 'runts' that I harvest from the garden. Give them a try...you will love them!

ETA: I add a pinch of grated Parmesan or Cheddar cheese for the last 10 minutes of baking instead of prior to baking. And I usually use fresh rosemary for the herb.

Oh yes, Lone Jack. I make those. I drizzle the smashed potatoes w/ crushed garlic/ butter/ olive oil like what I use on garlic bread. Or olive oil/ butter and Spike Vegit Seasoning.

Oh, the twist of crushed garlic sounds great. I'll give it a try. Only about 6 weeks until my Yukon gold potatoes will be ready to dig.

When I bake sweet potatoes (only a couple of times) they always ooze out on me and make a mess.

That happens to me, too. I oil the sweet potatoes & place them in a pan to bake. Then soak the pan. Or you could use parchment paper.

The other way I prepare sweet potatoes is to peel them, slice them into about 1/2-3/4" slices and cook them in an electric skillet w/ coconut oil, turning once. The oil adds a nice complementary flavor.

I have a fantastic vintage SaladMaster electric skillet--oil core skillet--that cooks very evenly and has very precise heat control. It's a great tool for tasks like carmelizing onions, too. Of course you can do both jobs stovetop; the skillet does it almost perfectly w/o so much tending.

The garlic IS great but then I live by the credo that There is No Such Thing as Too Much Garlic.

That is my motto as well. My garlic is ready to harvest about the same time as the potatoes or a week or 2 later so it will be good timing. I have about 120 hard neck garlic in my garden doing very well this year. Chopped garlic scapes on top sounds like something I'll have to try too.

Ci_Lantro I gave up on baking sweet potatoes because of the mess. We saw Jacques Pepin make sweet potatoes like you, thick slices in a skillet, and tried them. They're delicious!

I too make the crashed potatoes with the small potatoes that are in my bag of potatoes. Heaven!!

Put your sweet potatoes in a pan when you bake them. A good red sweet potato with be resinous and will possibly leak. The dryer light colored varieties not so much. Baking makes a huge difference in the taste. A baked sweet potato freezes well. So do several.

It is a true thing that russets used to have thicker skins. I have been peeling potatoes for sixty years. We used a knife.

I have never been a fan of foil because it does hold in the moisture. I like to make a shallow cut and squeese from the ends when I take them out. It fluffs and exhausts the insides and they can be reheated if necessary and still be fluffy. I am surprised at how many put salt on the skin. Is this a relatively new thing? I wouldn't because I have to be careful of salt but I notice people put salt on so many things these days.

I call the crash potatoes smashed potatoes. They are a favorite on the menu at some Papadeaux restaurants. I use small fresh red potatoes. Put in a bowl with a little bit of water and olive oil and cover with paper towels and cook in the microwave for a couple of minutes, just to get them soft enough to smash. Then take them out and put them in a hot skillet with olive oil. Take a potato masher tool and press down hard to make them burst open. Let them get crispy brown then flip them. Drizzle with butter and seasoning. Yummy.

Hasselback potatoes are also wonderful!

Jasdip, I love sweet potatoes so I don't mind the mess. Any leftovers I will eat cold, out of hand, skin & all out of the refrigerator for breakfast.

I do bake them in my little Nesco oven with the pull-out tray/ pan. So they bake up very moist; the ooze isn't crusty. A 30 minute soak in the sink takes care of the goo. Otherwise, just line the pan w/ parchment paper. Or maybe one of those silicone pan liners?

LoneJack, the chopped garlic scapes would be great on smashed potatoes. Life got in the way of me getting my garlic planted last year so I'm going to have to do w/ store bought & purchase new seed garlic this fall. I always plant 100-120 plants, too. Enough to get me thru the year & save the requisite # to plant.