How to Cook Baked Red Potatoes

Oven baked red potatoes stuffed with chili are great. Or serve as a side dish with crispy skins and fluffy insides with just some olive oil and salt. It’s the best way to make baked potatoes on a sheet pan.

Chili Baked Potato

We usually make a pot of our Crockpot chili and serve them together. If it is game day I will double both of those recipes and make a baked potato bar on my island with everything to top them with. Cheese, chives, sour cream, even diced jalapenos are fun to make them spicy.

Whether you bake these babies or make air fryer baked potatoes you always want to keep the skins moist with something that will help them crisp too. Olive oil does the trick for that. Now if you stick them in as is without something covering them the outsides will get quite “done” before the inside becomes tender to your liking.

How to Bake Red Potatoes

That is where the aluminum foil comes into play. If you wrap them it gives them more time to become fork tender before you unwrap and get the potato skins a bit crunchy. This is the case whether you used russets or this brighter version. Red is a bit firmer and hold together better than brown. Not typically used for baking but a nice change for sure.

• 6 large red potatoes
  • for a smaller baby potatoes recipe refer to this post
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper and/or any other seasonings you’d like to use

If you want large reds roasted in the oven you can follow this as instructed below. Another method is to use those small baby sizes in a bag and make seasoned parmesan smashed potatoes too, those are quite delicious. Larger would make more sense if it will be stuffed, smaller a perfect side dish.

How Long to Bake Red Potatoes

About 1 hour, a bit less for this or baking potatoes in a toaster oven. The biggest thing to remember when choosing them is to make sure they are all the same size. Timing is for those on the larger side, so smaller wouldn’t take quite as long. If you added some smaller to medium and others that are large some will be perfect while others will still be too firm to eat in the center.

Red Baked Potatoes in Foil

These are made whole like we do when making Instant Pot red potatoes pressure cooker style. If you used baby reds or cut the potatoes they would obviously take less time but you would need more prep at the beginning.

For those you’d want to toss the potatoes with olive oil, dried seasonings, sale and black pepper and then add to your sheet pan. I would cut the time in half for those, moving them around half way thru. Remove once golden brown and tender.

• Preheat the oven to 375 F. Wash potatoes thoroughly and pat dry with paper towels.
• Rub each one with olive oil.
• Wrap each potato in a piece of foil of a suitable size and sprinkle salt all over the skin.
• Set on baking sheet and place in a preheated oven.
• Bake until tender when pierced in center with a knife.
• This will take 45 min – 60
  • how long to bake potatoes at 375 in foil depends on how large yours are.
• Let them cool slightly, then cut off the top with the skin.
• Fluff the inside with a fork. Sprinkle with salt and pepper if desired.
  • Then you can fill them with chili and grated cheddar on top if you want, melt in a few more min if desired
  • OR prepare make ahead twice baked potatoes

I mean chili isn’t the only thing that goes well in the middle but is certainly our go to. For something more simple you could go with just grated parmesan cheese and fresh parsley if it was served on the side for dinner time. Think outside of the box, use leftover meat, or a variety of vegetables…..

Stuffed Red Potatoes

What else is great to stuff potatoes in the oven when done?? Ok so let’s talk about our short list of other rundowns. Velveeta cheese sauce can be paired with like so many things so we will start with that one. It goes well with packaged bacon bits from the store for a fast meal. Leftover diced ham or beef works too.

• To add vegetables inside. this is how to boil broccoli with cheese of some kind melted all over the top of it too.
• If you wanted to make veggies in the oven at the same time, throw in some roasted cauliflower and brussel sprouts. A vegetarian choice that could be a main dish for sure.
• Want to add heat to any of these choices? You can do so with some red pepper flakes, chili powder, or a drizzle of Sriracha.
• If you have a large crowd coming over and you want a heartier selection to put inside I would suggest making pulled pork baked potatoes for your guests.

I mean there are so many other possibilities. There really isn’t much that wouldn’t be great inside as far as savory items are involved. If you make pressure cooker baked potatoes you can cut down the cook time dramatically. You’ll get them as tender but the skins will be soft too.

Oven Roasted Red Potatoes

Now in the oven these do take up to an hour to get to fork tender. If you didn’t have that much time I’d recommend cooking in your Instant Pot which is closer to 15 minutes. There is a difference with this way though. The skins won’t get crispy at all, but you can fix that at the end if you wanted. Either throw them under your broiler for a few minutes.

Or better yet you can preheat and air fry red potato skins sprayed with olive oil for 4 minutes or so to get that done this way. Using the directions below you can get both done all at once, it just takes longer. Your choice. I know that some days are a hectic mess without much time on your hands and others are more lax.

What can be made with left over potatoes

This goes for any cooked varieties really. They save well if you let them cool, wrap with foil and keep in the fridge. In the morning you can dice them up, toss with oil, season them and cook up with eggs as hashbrowns. Making corned beef hash with it is great, smash and air fry for a few minutes or dice to make Zuppa Tuscana soup. OR just reheat baked potato in air fryer and stuff again.

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