The Eternal Potato Question: Which Potatoes Are Best For Baking, Roasting, Mashing, Boiling, Frying?

In this post:

  • Brief introduction
  • Table 1: potato cooking methods and the type of potato to use for each with links to the methods
  • Table 2: comprehensive list of some 150 odd potato types by category – waxy, floury or all-purpose

For a whole host of other posts about potatoes follow this link.

To browse the rest of this site (there are posts on all kinds of surprising things) follow this link.

“I bought a big bag of potatoes and it’s growing eyes like crazy. Other foods rot. Potatoes want to see.”

Bill Callahan Letters to Emma Bowlcut

Yes, but how to cook them before they do? And which variety can be used for what? You can’t go too far wrong with a Maris Piper – in the UK more of this type of potato is grown than any other and it’s fine for chips, roast potatoes, mash and wedges.

Here are some helpful guidelines for which readily available potatoes to use for what, and in the table underneath that there is a comprehensive list of potato types and the categories they fall into.

If you want to feel inspired to grow potatoes, watch The Martian – see the trailer at the bottom of this post.

Keep your potatoes in a cool, dark place otherwise the starch will turn to sugar.

If your potatoes have turned green it’s because they’ve been exposed to light which has increased their alkaloid levels. This can be harmful and often causes bitterness – if the potato is big and the green area small you can cut out the green flesh, otherwise toss the whole potato away.

1. Potato cooking methods and type of potato to use

Cooking methodPotato type
Roast

 

Recipe: Super-excellent roast potatoes

Desirée, Cara, King Edward, Maris Piper, Romano, Wilja
Baked (in jacket)

 

Recipe: How to cook the best ever baked potatoes in their jackets

Estima,  Marfona or Viking…. also King Edward and Maris Piper.
Fried

 

Recipe: Fried potatoes – earthy rich simplicity – a poem of potatoes

Russet
BoiledJersey Royals or Yukon Gold
MashedRusset, Maris Piper or Caribe if you want smooth; Smash if you want instant! Charlotte or Yukon Gold if you like lumpy but more flavour (with effort you can, in fact, achieve a smoother, more velvety texture with waxy potatoes); Highland Burgundy Red and Salad Blue if you want stunning, colourful, looks
Salad

 

Recipe: German potato salad or Potato salad with smoked salmon

Pink Fir Apple, Jersey Royals, Cyprus, Jazzy. BUT remember, as Nigel Slater (Kitchen Diaries III) comments “Large, floury-textured potatoes can be wonderful in a salad despite what purists say. The whole ‘salad potato’ dictum is a bit of a red herring.” Rules are made to be broken!
Dauphinois

 

Recipe: Creamy, dreamy dry stone wall dauphinois

King Edward or Maris Piper – although some advocate waxy potatoes, in my view floury are much better.
Pommes AnnaRusset (floury); or Desirée, Yukon Gold; fingerlings or Nicola (waxy) probably better. You don’t want them to fall apart
GnocchiRusset (floury)

 

 

2. Different potato types and how to use them

Fluffy, starchyWaxy All-purpose, smooth
For: roast potatoes, potatoes in their jackets (baked), mashed potatoes, fried potatoesFor: salads, soups and stews.

 

Includes red-skinned, ‘fingerling’. No need to peel

OK for roasting, mashing and baking
AgriaAdirondack Blue – purple skin and blue-purple flesh – the colour deepens when roasted and fades when mashed. Earthy  and nutty to taste. Don’t use for soups.Accord
BruiseAdirondack Red – red skin with pink flesh which fades with cooking. As for Blue, don’t use in soups.Allura
Arran Victory4AnnabelleAll Blue (again, lives up to its name)
Cara (see Picasso in ‘waxy’)AnyaApache
Caribe (has a purple skin)Arran CometBintje – a Dutch-bred type, yellow flesh, yellow skin. Very popular in France and Belgium. The potato of choice for frites.
ChippewaAustrian CrescentCasablanca (chipping, baking or boiling)
Coliban (Australian)BambinoChopin
DaisyBelle de Fontenay – very popular French variety, good for saladsDesirée
Dunbar RoverCarlingfordDundrod
FianaCarolaEstima (especially good for jacket potatoes)
Golden WonderCharlotteGolden Delight
Highland Burngundy RedCliff KidneyHarmony
Idaho (also Idaho Russet)CorolleKaraka
Ilham HardyCyprus1Katahdin
InnovatorDuke of YorkKennebec
Highland Burgundy Red7Dutch Creams – very popular, rich, buttery taste. Although waxy are also good roasted, baked, and mashedLady Balfour
Kerr’s pinkExquisaMarabel
King Edward (red)French Fingerling, or just Fingerling – approx. five cm long, and thin… like fingers!Marfona (especially good for jacket potatoes)
Lady ClaireGallanteMaris Bard
Lady RosettaHeatherMelody
Maris AnchorHome GuardMoonlight
Maris Piper (although fluffy, a good all-rounder. Good for chips)Inca DawnMozart
Pentland CrownInca GoldNadine
Pentland DellInternational Kidney AGM – good buttery flavourNorland Red
Pentland HawkJazzy2Osprey
Pentland IvoryJersey RoyalOtway Red, red skin, cream flesh
 Jersey BennesPentland Dell
Pentland SquireKestrelPontiac (good for everything except frying)
Red Duke of York5KipflerPurple Majesty (lives up to its name – looks amazing)
RussetLa BonnottePurple Passion – excellent cooker, especially for chips or boiled
Russet BurbankLady Christl AGMPurple Peruvian, deep purple skin, and usually marbled white and inky purple. Dry and starchy texture with a slightly nutty flavour
Salad Blue6La Ratte (many say better than CharlotteRed Duke of York5
SanteLisetaRed Gold
Sarpo MiraMajesticRed King (New Zealand)
Shetland BlackMaris Piper and Maris Peer9Red Rascal
 NadineRocket
 NicolaRomano
 Patrone – good in salads, don’t mashRooster3
 Pentland JavelinRoyal Blue, purple skin, good mash and roasties
 Picasso. Bred from Cara, has the same creamy skin and striking bright red eyes.Rua
 Pink Eye (nutty flavour)Saxon
 Pink Fir Apple AGM (wonderful!)Sebago (Australian)
 PremiereSpunta (good in salads)
 Purple Congo – purple skin, can be a bit dry, don’t roastToolangi Delight (Australian) – makes good gnocchi
 Purple Heart – deep purple flesh – salads, boiled or microwavedVales Sovereign
 Purple VikingVan Rosa (very red skin)
 RedskinViking
 Red Bliss, bright red skin, slightly bitter. Don’t use for mashingVivaldi
 Red Duke of York5Wilja
 Red RoseYukon Gold
 Red ThumbYellow Finn (or Finnish)
 Rocket 
 Rose Finn Apple 
 Rose Gold – don’t mash 
 Roseval 
 Southern Gold (aka Pink Eye, see above) 
 Swift 
 Ulster Sceptre 
 Whitchill 
 White Rose 
Notes on the table above:

1. Cyprus potatoes are widely used in the middle east where the Jersey Royal might be used in Britain

2. Jazzy is the brand name for a small, waxy, set-skinnned potato. It’s grown in Britain by a group of five farmers based in Cornwall, Norfolk and Lancashire.

3. Rooster is another brand name – a very popular and versatile potato

4.  Arran Victory had a true victory with Heston Blumenthal who identified it as the best potato for making chips. “It had the perfect balance of flavour and texture: the glass-like exterior crunching apart readily, the interior soft and delicately fluffy. It’s the contrast of the two that makes a great chip – the mix of two very different textures giving the mouth a sublime surprise – and Arran Victory really delivered that”  he relates in his book Total Perfection.

5. Red Duke of York can be eaten as a new potato if harvested early, but is also very good as a baked, jacket potato if left to mature

6. Salad Blue – keeps its bluish colour when roasted and boiled and produces spectacular purple-blue mash

7. Highland Burgundy Red – produces a spectacular bright red mash. Sweet flavour, also good steamed and roasted

8. If you cook potatoes at least 24 hours before eating and then put them in the fridge some of their digestible starches will become resistant, which makes the starches behave more like fibre and is better for you…. not a lot of people know that!

9. Maris Piper… and other potatoes incorporating Maris in their name are named after Maris Lane, the address in Cambridge where the institute that bred them was based. ‘Piper’ was chosen at random simply because it was a word beginning with ‘P’… for ‘potato’.

Potato-related clip to watch

Get inspired to grow potatoes…. watch The Martian.

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Nick Ford

Splendid, really comprehensive guide. And a brilliant film, too. Thank you 🙂

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