This is a recipe for making roast potatoes in a basket-type air fryer, using a Philips AirFryer™ as an example.
The maximum capacity of the average model Philips AirFryer is 1.25 kg (2 3/4 lbs) of raw potato, chunked.
Let’s make a full batch: that’s enough for 4 people. Or for two people for two meals, providing leftovers for the next evening.
There’s our 1.250 kg of potato all weighed out on the scales; that’s 6 medium potatoes.
I don’t know what variety they were; they were in an unmarked bushel on sale. For best results, peel the potatoes (will discuss further down.)
Anyway, as usual folks, let’s get the recipe out there, then we can dissect it later.
Yield: 4 x 1 cup (140 g / 5 oz) servings
Roast potatoes in a basket air fryer
Instructions
- Wash potato, peel, cut into large chunks, adding chunks to a large bowl.
- Add 1 teaspoon of oil to the bowl of potato chunks and just using your clean hands, toss well until all surfaces are coated. (Tip! first have air basket pulled out and beside you, ready to receive the potatoes, because your hands will be oily.)
- Cook (no need to pre-heat) at 160 C (320 F) for 25 minutes.
- Take out the potatoes and tip them back into the bowl you have been using. Toss them in there briefly and gently using a large spoon.
- Transfer potato chunks back into fryer basket. Place back into machine, raise temperature on the machine to 180 C (350 F), and cook for another 7 minutes.
- Take out the potatoes and tip them back into the bowl you have been using. Toss them in there using a large spoon. (At this point, a few might look just about done, but once you toss them you'll see that there's loads that aren't quite as far along.)
- Transfer potato chunks back into fryer basket. Leave temperature unchanged. Roast for a final 7 minutes.
- Serve piping hot. Best reheated in machine.
Notes
Nutrition
Which variety of potato works best? If you’re in the UK (or anywhere else) where you can get Desiree, King Edward or Maris Piper, try those. If you’re in North America where potatoes are just sold generically by the bag as “all-purpose table potatoes“, they will generally work just fine, but you may achieve the best and most reliable results with russets.
In the photo below, the potato chunks are about the size you want for a good British-style roast potato; certainly no smaller.
Size of the potato chunks to aim for
With a basket-type air fryer, you have to first toss your veggies in a separate bowl to coat them with oil.
Since I’ve dirtied the bowl anyway, I tend to use it twice more to “retoss” the potatoes in at the two further stages of cooking where it’s needed.
I can “air toss” straight from the basket in a pinch if there’s not too much in it, but if there’s a lot in it, the chances of something ending up on the floor are good.
If you’re like me, and this is your first time out, you’re going to wonder why the three separate roasting steps. So I’m going to show you visually the progress at each step.
The photo below shows after the first 20 minutes, still pretty bland looking.
The roasties after 20 minutes
After this initial roast, and a toss, we raise the temperature to 180 C (350 F).
This is to mimic the temperature of fat / oil rising as it recovers from the initial cold ingredients added to it, and really coming into its own. (Classic roast potatoes are roasted in a pan of sizzling-hot melted suet.)
The roasties after a total of 27 minutes.
Above you see the roasties after 7 minutes.
Nearly there but not quite.
A toss, then back in for a final 7 minute blast.
The roasties after 34 minutes
And there above we have the finished roast potatoes, after a total of 34 minutes.
The cut sides are crispy, the sides with the skin left on them will of course be softer. The insides are nice and fluffy; the potatoes are quite moist overall.
Peeling is best
For best results, peel. We’ve made them both ways peeled and unpeeled for several years now, and the jury is in: peel makes for softer roast potatoes and with some varieties it can make them come out even somewhat rubbery.
Roast potatoes should be crisp or there is no point.
You don’t need to waste the peel; assuming you have washed the potato first as you should, you can simmer and strain it, freezing the liquid as potato peel broth for soups. Then put the boiled peel into the compost or feed to livestock if you have any where you are. There, no waste.
At some point, I’ll replace the photos of unpeeled potato on this page with peeled ones.
Don’t overcrowd basket
One minor world of caution: don’t overcrowd the basket as that may cause a potato or two to get rammed up against the top heating elements.
Here’s what happens:
Some of your dinner ends up looking like a Hanukkah dreidel piece with a Hebrew letter on it.
Those top elements make burn marks into the food.
Honest; I found out in the usual way, by having it happen to me.
Nutrition
250 calories per cup (140 g / 5 oz)
Weight Watchers points: Per cup (140 g / 5 oz): 6 PointsPlus® / 7 Freestyle Smartpoints®
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by hotairfrying.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
* AirFryer™ is a registered trademark of Philips, Netherlands.
Tried this but par-boiled the potatoes first, skin on in Malaysia is not a terribly good idea as the potatoes even though Idaho suffer quite a lot from lesions which need to be cut out. Anyway the result was fabulous roast potatoes after the first 30 minutes and didn’t need to continue with the second and third stage. Many thanks for sharing.
Oh really, a lot of lesions on the potato skins in Malaysia? Well you’d get crisper roasties from peeling them anyway, so there’s definitely a culinary argument to be made in favour of peeling them in that regard.
Glad to hear they were good. Now you may wish to do an experiment of doing what you did but *without* parboiling the tatties first. BTW what fat / oil did you toss them in first?
Can’t comment I haven’t used my airfryer yet would like some ideas on using the airfryer
What model of airfryer do you have?
Always peel the potatoes .
Its skin contains toxin (alkaloids)
Hi John, that’s only a concern if the potato is lightstruck and has turned green: “When exposed to light, a potato springs to life and starts growing, turning green and sprouting spouts, like nature intended it to. In the process, though, the potato produces poisonous alkaloids that are not destroyed by cooking and that can make you very sick indeed. Don’t fool around with this. When peeling potatoes, trim out and discard any sprouts and buds. You can cut out any very small green patches that might have formed, but if the potato is a lot more green than that, discard it. If you are making a vegetable broth from peelings, don’t use any potato buds, sprouts or green peels in it. When a potato has a greenish hue, it is called “light struck”.” https://www.hotairfrying.com/potatoes
Thanks for replying.This is what i found on wiki
“While a normal potato has 12–20 mg/kg of glycoalkaloid content, a green tuber contains 250–280 mg/kg, and green skin 1500–2200 mg/kg”
which means a normal potato(not green) still contains toxins.So I think just to be on safe side, remove the peel.
I love my air fryer. I had Yukon golds and cut them into fairly uniform pieces and they were raw. I will par boil them the next time.
What was the procedure you followed, with timings?
Who I used canola oil and it leaves a not so,nice taste. The spuds come out great but I was wondering which oil is best please?
There has been no mention of seasoning the potatoes, what was used and when did you add it.
For classic English style roast potatoes, it’s not typical to add any seasoning beyond perhaps some salt and pepper and maybe not even that. But you may feel free to season as you wish, bearing in mind that herbs, minced garlic, etc can char easily and are perhaps best applied in the last few minutes of cooking.
I used red potatoes and instead of just 1 teaspoon of oil I used about 1/4 c olive oil. I also chopped up 2 large cloves of garlic and added them to the oil. I coated the potatoes and cooked them for the 25 minutes. Then took the potatoes out of the cooker and again added them to the oil, but this time I added a bit of garlic salt, coated the poraroes again and put them back into the cooker, and followed your cooking directions. Yummy.
I just tried this and they turned out beaut. Thanks so much.
I love my air fryer since the day I bought it ha-ha! It`s so much easier and healthy with it!
yummmm!
Like the taste of olive oil in my air fryer. Looking for anyone who has experimented with potato pancakes. Anyone