Why A Sheet Pan Is Key For The Crispest Parmesan-Crusted Potatoes

Home cooks wrangling multi-ingredient dishes with sheet pans is a relatively new phenomenon, one that has taken social media by storm with entire meals being prepared on this formerly unsung workhorse of the kitchen. This invaluable tool, one professional cooks have arguably been using for more than a century, has become a go-to solution for roasting all manner of morsels, from juicy flank steak and all kinds of fish to fresh garden vegetables, in your home kitchen, but perhaps the most ubiquitous is the potato.

When you make roasted potatoes by drizzling the spuds in oil and cooking them at high temperatures on a sturdy sheet pan, the result is an irresistibly crispy exterior and fluffy, sometimes even creamy, interior. It's akin to frying potatoes, only without the hassle or excess grease. While creative seasonings will enhance oven-roasted potatoes, the addition of grated parmesan will take your potatoes to a whole new level, and it's the sheet pan that makes it all possible by providing a wide surface to spread the cheese on, allowing it to crisp up evenly.

As a sharp, aged cheese with a low moisture content, parmesan is precisely why you get such irresistible crispiness, as well as an wonderful nutty sharpness infused into your potatoes. The texture is similar to frico, the crunchy cheese cracker from Italy's Friuli region in the northeast. It's no surprise that this easy, affordable recipe went viral across social media platforms over the past few years.

To perfect this technique, you'll want to place a layer of freshly grated parmesan onto the bottom of your sheet pan, but you can also use parchment paper for easier clean-up. It's important to avoid using the pre-grated variety, as fresh parmesan will melt more evenly and frankly, it tastes better. For the potatoes, you'll want to halve them for maximum surface area (and thus more crispness). By roasting the spuds skin-side up, on top of the grated parmesan, it ensures that the fully-cooked potatoes are bound together by a crunchy, flavorful lacework of cheese. When serving, don't forget to sprinkle the remaining bits of parmesan left in the pan on top of the potatoes, because every crunch counts.