For Perfectly Crispy Breakfast Potatoes Every Time, Try Anne Burrell's Technique

Who doesn't love deliciously crispy potatoes for breakfast? Whether eaten on the side or mixed up in a tasty skillet or hash, breakfast potatoes are super tasty and satisfying, particularly when extra crispy on the outside and smooth and creamy on the inside. Nailing the perfect texture of your morning potatoes can sometimes feel impossible — it seems like no matter how long you cook them, they stay soft and mushy. Luckily, celebrity chef Anne Burrell has shared her secret for restaurant-worthy, ultra-crispy potatoes. The trick is to double-cook them: Boil the potatoes first, then pan-fry them.

On the Food Network's YouTube channel, the former host of "Worst Cooks in America" shares easy-to-follow instructions for making crispy breakfast potatoes at home. After dicing the potatoes into cubes, she adds them to a pot of water (with garlic and salt). While those are boiling, she fries up some bacon, onions, and bell peppers in a cast iron skillet with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. When the potatoes are fork-tender, she drains them and adds them to the skillet with the other ingredients. The rendered bacon fat and oil already in the pan should be enough to crisp up the potatoes nicely but feel free to add more oil as needed. 

Besides double-cooking your potatoes, a helpful tip for an extra-crispy skillet is to use the proper cookware. The best pan to use when cooking breakfast potatoes is a cast iron skillet due to its high capacity for heat retention. The ability to cook your food evenly at a high temperature is crucial for delivering perfectly crispy potatoes. Remember, it's important to season a cast iron pan, new or old, in order to prevent your food from sticking to your cookware (use a food-grade mineral oil like Clark's Seasoning Oil for Cast Iron Skillets). If making a larger batch of breakfast potatoes, another option is to roast them in the oven.

Whether pan-frying or oven-roasting your potatoes, another simple hack for crispy breakfast potatoes is to add around 1 teaspoon of baking soda to the water when boiling them. The baking soda creates an alkaline environment that brings the starch in the potatoes to the surface, leading to an extra crispy exterior when cooked. 

It also helps to choose the best potato variety for your extra-crispy breakfast. Russet potatoes are a top choice because they crisp up nicely while staying soft inside. Yukon golds and red potatoes are also decent choices for flavor but their lower starch content means they won't get quite as crispy as russets. For potato cubes that are uniform in shape and size, consider using a vegetable chopper like the Mueller Pro-Series Vegetable Chopper.