The PERFECT Oven Baked Potatoes

Learn the secret for the perfect, crispy oven baked potato. It’s simple, delicious, and will elevate your baked potato night to something special!

Baked potatoes are a classic – they’re affordable, easy to make, and everyone loves a good baked potato.

The only catch with baked potatoes is that most people don’t know the secret to making them perfectly crispy and flavorful! If you’re wrapping them in foil before cooking, microwaving them, or cooking them in a slow cooker then you’re missing out on all sorts of flavor and texture that will change the way you look at baked potato night forever!

Thankfully, a delicious, perfectly-cooked oven baked potato doesn’t require a ton of extra effort or time on your part. After a quick 5-minute prep time, you just step back and let the oven do the rest of the work for you!

So, what’s the secret for a perfect oven baked potato?

The key to making a perfectly flavored and baked potato with a delicious, crispy skin is to bake it UNCOVERED in the oven, directly on the rack.

Wrapping it in foil only allows the potato to steam and leaves the skin a little soggy and not at all crisp. Instead, leave it completely uncovered to allow for a crust to form on the skin. If you leave it on the rack and don’t even place it on a cookie sheet, it allows the potato to get crisp all the way around, not just on the top and sides.

In addition to leaving your baked potato unwrapped in the oven, you’re going to want to generously season the potato with olive oil and salt prior to cooking it. It adds so much flavor to the skin of the potato, and if you’ve never tried it before you might be surprised to find it’s the first time you actually want to eat the entire baked potato, and not just the inside!

But, doesn’t it make a mess in the oven?

I know what you’re thinking – if I just place the potato directly on the rack, it’ll make a huge mess in the bottom of my oven, right?!

Not if you take the right precautions!

Before you toss your potato in the oven to bake, line a cookie sheet with foil. Then, place it on the bottom rack of the oven. Then, place the potatoes on the rack above it. Any dripping oil or salt will land directly on the cookie sheet, and your oven will stay clean.

What are the best baked potato toppings?

Most of the time, we like to keep it classic! When it’s baked potato night in our house, we always have these toppings available for a fully loaded baked potato:

• Sour cream
• Butter
• Cheese
• Bacon
• Chives

When we want to amp it up, though, we love to add some more fun toppings too. Here are a few of our go-to’s:

• Buffalo chicken
• Pulled pork
• Ham steak
• BBQ chicken
• Steak
• Fajita meat

The sky’s the limit – you can add just about anything to your baked potato.

Just promise me you’ll never wrap it in foil again, okay?

How to Make the Perfect Baked Potato