For The Best Baked Potatoes Skip The Oven

Baked potatoes are a staple dish, they never go out of style. Whether you're enjoying one as a side to a classic protein-forward meal or as the star of the show itself served "jacket potato" style under an assortment of toppings, if you have a bag of spuds on hand, you're never far away from the makings of an excellent meal. While baked potatoes are essentially blank slates to be dressed up with any desired flavors, making them can traditionally be time-consuming. Most people assume an oven is the best route for perfectly baked, crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside spuds, but unless you enjoy heating up your entire kitchen and the hour-plus of cook time required, there are better workarounds. 

Undoubtedly the quickest route is a microwave, but the quality and crispness of your potato will suffer from this shortcut. Enter the air fryer — the trusty appliance that fits in even the smallest kitchen but punches above its weight in terms of efficiency and usefulness. Air fryers are often used for tasks like roasting veggies, but the foods they can handle are virtually endless. Air fryer potatoes take a bit less time than a standard oven, and come out with delicately crisped-up skin and soft insides. Just choose your potato, wash the outsides (skins should be eaten!), and bake at high heat for around 40 minutes.

There are many tips and techniques for making baked potatoes that taste restaurant-worthy, but even when using an air fryer, it's not quite as simple as just tossing taters over the heat and walking away. As with the oven-baked kind, for the best air fryer potatoes possible, the magic lies in the prep. Importantly, you should choose your fighter (aka your type of potato) wisely. While Yukon golds and reds can certainly be baked, most tend to agree that Russet potatoes reign supreme. Prized for their size and their high starch, low-moisture insides that turn light and airy after baking, when split in half, they act as an ample vessel of carby goodness to load up with toppings. 

For best results, your air fryer should be preheated to 400 Fahrenheit. While waiting, thoroughly wash your potatoes, prick with a fork a few times, and crucially, and rub with some olive oil. The combination of oil and forgoing the use of aluminum foil on your potatoes sets you up for deliciously crackly, crispy skins. Try baking for around 35 to 40 minutes in the air fryer basket, watching out for wrinkly, shriveled-up skin, which indicates your spud has been overcooked. If you're a cautious home cook, set the air fryer for less time, check, and you can always cook for an additional five to 10 minutes if needed, until the Russet can be easily cut into with a knife.

Conventional ovens may be the traditional appliance in most people's eyes for perfectly done potatoes, but they come with their downfalls — namely the time required and the heat and energy expended to cook spuds for upwards of an hour. On the flip side, you can easily fit a few potatoes into the basket of an air fryer, and because of the mechanism powering everyone's favorite workhorse appliance, root veggies are cooked through evenly, quickly, and without raising the temperature of your kitchen. 

Air fryers are tabletop convection ovens, which differ from the conventional electric or gas ovens found in most kitchens because of their method of circulating heat around the unit with a fan. The convection process cooks potatoes more evenly, in less time, and is a more energy-efficient technology. So, if you have one, it should be your first pick for baking potatoes.

The convection oven process at work in an air fryer (or, if your main oven has a convection setting) is especially handy for crisping up foods, making it the perfect tool to utilize for potatoes — of the fried or baked variety. Once yours are done, slice immediately to let the steam escape, then slather with butter, salt, sour cream, or top with a hot dog for a protein-forward complete meal, or whatever creative toppings your heart desires.