Try Guy Fieri's Brilliant Baked Potato Tip For A Flavor-Packed Spud

In need of an inspired side dish for dinner, or just looking to bake some potatoes that you can stack with toppings? Mayor of Flavortown Guy Fieri has one hot tip to give your baked potatoes a flavor boost, and all it takes is a little time. He brines his potatoes before baking, rather than simply salting them.

Savvy carnivores already know the technique, as it's a common suggestion for tenderizing and seasoning meat. Yet it's arguably less well-known that brining works for vegetables, though results can vary. For potatoes, it's a winning idea, giving them a creamy texture inside with a perfectly crispy skin, while also seasoning the interior as salt is absorbed.

You'll probably want a sizable container of salt on hand: Fieri's spuds call for an 8-to-1 ratio of water to salt (8 cups of water and 1 cup of salt) when making six potatoes. Toss them in and leave them for two to eight hours — bear in mind that the longer they brine, the saltier they'll be. Once out of the brine, you can liberally salt them again and add any other seasonings you like (Fieri uses pepper and garlic salt), then bake them as usual. Just don't forget to prick them with a fork to avoid any explosions. Fieri serves his with horseradish sour cream, but baked potatoes are a blank slate for flavor, so there's no shortage of other potential toppings.

For the science-minded, brining leans on a couple of different processes: Diffusion and osmosis. Without getting too deep into the cellular mechanics, these basically affect the water distribution within the potatoes, pushing that salted water into the spud's cells (osmosis) and subsequently spreading the salt (diffusion) within them. This essentially seasons the potato from the inside. The process also helps the cells retain more water (why is why brining meat stops it from drying out), which is what helps to create the creamier texture of the potato. 

It's worth noting that Guy Fieri's approach to potato brining isn't gospel — some people even find it a bit heavy on the salt (though the sour cream apparently helps). There are versions that use a more diluted, watery brine, but also adjacent dishes like Syracuse salt potatoes (though they're boiled, not baked), which use way more salt. Fieri's hours-long brining time is also on the longer side, as very short brines apparently work pretty well, to the point where simply giving potatoes a quick dunk in brine yields solid results (though often with saltier water: 2 tablespoons of salt to about a half-cup of water is a common ratio). Much of this probably comes down to personal preference, but either way, it seems that following Fieri's lead and brining baked potatoes is a good move.