How to Make the Crispiest Homemade Fries Without Deep Frying

[Music] most recipes for oven fries are downright terrible they turn out a little something like this they're mostly pale except on the ends where they're incredibly tough and burnt they're very flabby and on the inside they're just really mealy and starchy so today we're gonna solve the oven fry problem once and for all because lawns here and she cooked over 10 pounds of potatoes every day for over three weeks in order to get it just right and by my estimation that's a lot of potatoes sure is and most of them pretty bad oh really oh yes but we're not gonna do that today we figured out how to make them taste great have that perfect texture and be nice and fluffy on the enzymes moan tall order yes we're going to start with the flavor so the key to french fry flavor is to get the oil to oxidize slightly that's what happens when you fry since we're not frying in the oven we have to find a way around that mm-hmm I'm starting with baking spray and I'm just gonna coat this pan generously and then for the oil flavor I have three tablespoons of vegetable oil okay so baking spray then vegetable oil is the key right what we're doing here isn't just preventing the fries from sticking the cooking sprays can help the vegetable oil stay spread out across the surface of the pan and that's how we ensure that every fry has just that right amount of flavor well because that's not a lot of oil no no you see a lot of recipes that call for 1/3 to 1/2 a cup of oil and you end up with kind of greasy fries and sometimes the smoking oven and that was I've done that so now I'm just tilting the pan to make sure it's evenly distributed so the reason we coated that baking sheet with cooking spray before adding the vegetable oil is because it allows us to use less oil overall well how does that work well comes down to the lecithin in the baking spray see lecithin is a special molecule it has two sides one side that's generally sticky and the other side that's attracted to oil so when you spray it on the baking sheet the sticky side sticks to the metal the side that likes the oil is facing up so when you pour the oil on top of it it disperses evenly over the baking sheet making a nice thin layer so we can get away with using just three tablespoons looks great okay next up the fries I have Yukon Gold potatoes here we're using Yukons because they have a nice thin skin and we don't have to peel them so I'm just gonna cut them first in half lengthwise alright so you went through the thin part of the potato yes that just means we'll get more fries per potato and I'm trimming a tiny sliver off the long side of each half instead of cutting the traditional wedge shape or even the matchstick we're gonna go with planks that ensures two flat sides four nice browning and crisp eNOS and we don't have to flip them as often ah very clever that's it this is two pounds of Yukon Golds okay next if I were to take those potatoes and just dump them on this sheet pan pop them in the oven they're not gonna crisp up I've done that it doesn't work now what we can do is put something on the outside that we know will crisp up and that ingredient is corn starch I've got three tablespoons here and instead of just sprinkling this on the potatoes which will make the fries end up being a little dusty we're gonna mix it with some water 3/4 of a cup but you can't put the potatoes in this either no that looks pretty watering yeah nothing's gonna stick what we're gonna do is pop this in the microwave that's gonna cook the corn starch just a little bit we'll end up with something that's a little pudding like but it'll be thick enough to coat the planks really nicely it's gonna take anywhere between one to three minutes and I'll be stirring every 20 seconds so here we go it really transforms with those few minutes in the microwave yeah so it's pretty warm but not too thick not too thin if you do overdo it a little bit you can just add a couple tablespoons of water maybe a little at a time whisk it in thin it out so it brings it right back yeah thank you so I'm just gonna add these potatoes plunk right and I like to get in there with my hands it's a little hard to get them to separate sometimes if you're using a spatula so what I'm looking for here is to make sure the potatoes are each lightly coated with this goo once they are we're gonna transfer them to the baking sheet Silvana gotta tell you this looks really weird feels really weird too and I got some weird looks in the kitchen when I was doing this but it's totally worth it all right so these look great they look right I'm trusting you at this point they look right there's just a thin coating on here let's get them on the baking sheet all right I just want to make sure there's a tiny bit of space in between each plank so that they're not touching each other or getting glued to each other yeah they're actually pretty well spread out on that baking sheet yeah I found that if you crowd the baking sheet they don't brown as quickly and it's not as satisfying okay so one last thing to do we're gonna cover these guys with aluminum foil this has been greased we're covering them so that they steam in the oven that'll take about 12 minutes in 425 degree oven the very lowest rack of the oven and then I'll remove that foil and let them Brown on the first side and that'll take anywhere between 10 to 18 minutes whew they smell like fries they look like fries or they will when I flip them right the cornstarch coating is mostly disappeared which is great and I'm just gonna flip these over oh I was not expecting them to look like that when she flipped him over and all of that with just three tablespoons of oil that's a real feat yes this looks great this is ideal the center ones are usually less Brown they'll darken a tiny bit in the oven as they continue to brown all right back in the end they go yes they're gonna go in for another 10 to 18 minutes to brown that second side and we're using the very lowest rack of the oven because then the fries are right up against the heating element makes sense my goodness that is quite a transformation right don't they smell great they smell amazing it went from really weird-looking to really amazing looking you wouldn't know they had looked weird earlier right so first things first we're gonna season them just like with all fries you want to get the salt on while the potatoes are hot I've got a half a teaspoon of table salt here and it might sound like a lot but you'll notice a ton of this is sticking to the pan so don't worry I'm just gonna give them a quick toss one of the things that makes french fries taste like fries is that salt and we want to make sure it's getting on early enough that it sticks boy those fries really make a sound on that baking sheet they sound crisp they are these are the most beautiful oven fries I've ever seen oh thanks so let's get these off we want to make sure they're blotted so they're not greasy I'm just gonna give them a quick little tap get rid of this paper so you ready for price am I ready for fries I see you have some ketchup here I'm all about the condiments are you yeah sure hmm it has such a crisp exterior right right it tastes like a fried you can see that nice creamy interior that's hard to get on any fried much less an oven fry I mean look at this that's a gorgeous fry no matter what kind of fry it is much less than it came out of an oven the only three tablespoons of oil long these are oven fry perfection so if you want to make the ultimate oven fries start with a rimmed baking sheet and spray it with cooking spray men vegetable oil cut Yukon Gold potatoes into evenly thick planks and make a cornstarch slurry by cooking water and cornstarch together in the microwave after tossing the fries with the slurry and arranging them on the baking sheet roast them on the lowest draft of a 425-degree oven covering them with foil at the beginning and flipping them over a part way through cooking and don't forget to season them with salt while they're still hot from America's Test Kitchen to your kitchen killer recipe for thick cut oven fries thanks for watching America's Test Kitchen what you think we'll leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our Channel see you later I'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 2,002,796

Keywords: french fries, homemade, homemade fries, crispy fries, oven fries, cooking, potatoes

Id: Al4LYwOKsxw

Length: 8min 9sec (489 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/AdamClay2Klbs]

Americas test kitchen is the best!

[u/theskyismine]

Real talk though, I've done this a few times with thinner cut fries. I soak the sliced potatoes in water for 30 mins then dry them off with a towel to get them as dry as possible. I then bake them at around 420 for close to 30 mins. Then I toss them in olive oil, salt, ect...

I've made them by boiling the fries first then coating them in olive oil, but I think they turn out better if you soak them and dry them

[u/glavinitis]

Ma!

[u/jrfowle3]

wiger uses a different solution than the corn starch mixture when preparing these for the oven