Smitten Kitchen’s Crispy Crumbled Potatoes Are the Deep-Fried Gift We All Need This Year

In mid-April, when Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for Crispy Crumbled Potatoes, it was almost as if she was inside my brain. I’d been eating potatoes for weeks with my potato-loving in-laws — more than I think I’ve eaten in my entire lifetime — and I desperately needed a new way to prepare them. I was immediately intrigued by the crispy golden-brown nuggets, which she deemed better than french fries. Here’s what happened when I gave them a go.

Get the recipe: Smitten Kitchen’s Crispy Crumbled Potatoes

These potatoes breathed new life into me just when I thought I never really wanted to look at potatoes ever again. Deb is correct in saying they’re better than french fries. And although they do take some planning (you have to chill the cooked potatoes for at least two hours), they’re easy to make: You simply break up the cold potatoes into bite-sized pieces, fry them in a skillet, drain them on paper towels, and shower them with salt.

The irregular shapes mean you get all sorts of shatteringly crispy, craggily edges that make these potatoes extra fun to eat. You can cook as few or as many potatoes as you wish, depending on how many mouths you’re feeding, and you can play around with the flavors, too. Halfway through frying, I got the urge to throw a couple of fresh rosemary sprigs into the oil. I pulled them out when they had crisped but before they burned and the potatoes seriously benefitted from the herb-infused oil. They were extra fragrant and the fried leaves I sprinkled over the platter of potatoes were a delicious garnish.

Next time, I want to try finishing them with garlic powder and smoked paprika, and after that I’ve got za’atar, garam masala, grated Pecorino cheese and cracked black pepper, chili powder, and everything bagel seasoning on my list.

1. Plan ahead. The potatoes need to be cooked and completely cooled before they’re fried, so account for this in your planning. I boiled mine the night before as I was cleaning up from dinner, then drained them and let them come to room temperature on the counter. Right before I went to bed I tossed them in the fridge for the next night. Deb says you can also boil the potatoes up to three days in advance.
2. Use a fork to help break up the potatoes. Deb says to break up the potatoes with your hands, but I found that using a fork was much easier, and I was able to get lots of irregular pieces with plenty of craggy edges. Some skin did fall off in the process and I fried that, too, which was a crunchy bonus.
3. Don’t forget frying takes time. You’ll need to fry these potatoes in two or three batches. Mine took nearly 20 minutes per batch to achieve the rich color I was aiming for, which means it took me almost an hour to fry them all.

At Kitchn, our editors develop and debut brand-new recipes on the site every single week. But at home, we also have our own tried-and-true dishes that we make over and over again — because quite simply? We love them. Kitchn Love Letters is a series that shares our favorite, over-and-over recipes.