How To Make The Crispiest Fries At Home

Homemade french fries may seem like a fairly simple proposition: slice potato, fry potato, add ketchup, and eat. The sad truth is, though, that DIY fries often come out soggy. What is the elusive secret to crispy fries? According to Bob Bennett, the executive chef at Zingerman's Roadhouse, you've got to fry the potatoes twice. 

As he explains, "I often feel like soggy fries are the result of frying on too low of temperature or for not a long enough period of time." You'll first need to fry the potatoes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit to cook them all the way through (yes, you do need a deep-fry thermometer). Once they're done, which may take about 5 to 7 minutes, remove them from the fryer and drain them while you heat the oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Fry the potatoes for another minute or so, then take them out when they're golden brown. This second fry, according to Bennett, "gives you this creamy inside and a crispy outside."

Prep work also counts when it comes to making crispy fries. Before cooking, soak the potatoes in cold water between half an hour and 24 hours to remove excess starch (while starch may stiffen your shirt collar, it can make for floppy fried potatoes). Some may recommend adding salt to the soaking water, but this advice is best ignored. Salt can be damaging to cooking oil, causing it to break down and possibly add unwanted funky flavor to the fries

While the crispiest potatoes may be fried in oil (twice), you can also achieve some decent crunch using an oven or an air fryer (the latter appliance, after all, is essentially a mini convection oven). The Takeout spoke with another french fry expert, fashion designer-slash-culinary creator Peter Som, and he shared a few hints for both cooking methods.

If you're air frying your potatoes, Som says it's important to do so in batches since overcrowding the basket won't allow the air to circulate as needed for maximum crisp. You should also pause the cooking halfway through either to shake the basket or stir the fries so they brown evenly on both sides. If you're baking the fries, he suggests you first parboil them for two to three minutes to soften the insides. Drain them, cool them, then toss them with some oil to help with the crisping and mimic a little of that deep-fried flavor. He also recommends preheating the pan as well as the oven before adding the fries. These should be baked in a single layer since once again, overfilling the pan will lead to bad things. In this case, the crowded potatoes will steam and become soggy.

If you want to skip the potato prep, there's no shame in starting with frozen french fries. These actually tend to cook up crispier than fresh ones because they contain less moisture and may also have additives that form an extra-crunchy coating.  

Cooking is a science as well as an art, and yet there are times when no matter how carefully you follow the formula, things just don't turn out as you'd hoped. (Sorry to burst any bubbles, but the word "foolproof" in any recipe is an outright lie.) Even if you pre-soak, pre-heat, fry, and repeat, you may still wind up with floppy french fries, but there's no need to let them go to waste. One way to revive those soggy fries is by frying them for a third time. If you've already put away the deep fryer, you can do a shallow pan-fry and cook the potatoes in small batches. Limp potatoes can also be crisped up with about 5 minutes or so in an oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Instead of trying to re-crisp the fries, you could always repurpose them in a breakfast skillet or casserole. Try them in lomo saltado, a Peruvian stir-fry of steak strips, onions, and tomatoes that's typically made with french fries. They're bound to get soggy when stirred into the spicy sauce, so it won't matter too much if they start out that way. The same can be said of fratchos, but these are delicious, so go ahead and lay those limp fries in a pan, smother them with cheese, salsa, and chorizo, and bake them until the cheese melts. They'll still be soggy, but under all the tasty toppings, who really cares?