The Forgotten Kitchen Tool That Simplifies Homemade Potato Wedges

For not-so-frequent home chefs, making certain recipes might be a challenge since your arsenal of kitchen tools is likely more scarce than others. And the idea of trying to create perfectly uniform potato wedges using amateur knife skills, is not the most enticing ask.

Luckily, there's plenty of basic kitchen tools that are remarkably multi-purpose. The same tool you use to core your apples can also deliver equally sliced wedges of potato to be fried up. With a few simple pre-cuts, your apple slicer will help you achieve the best homemade potato wedges.

This restaurant quality cut is not easy to achieve, and are somewhat rare to come by ever since KFC discontinued its own potato wedge fries. Not to mention when working with an even harder spud like a sweet potato, you'll want the most ease of use you can get. Evenly sized potato wedges isn't just about presentation, either, they will help to ensure the whole batch cooks evenly. But, before you dust off that apple slicer, there's a few prep steps to take.

While an apple slicer's original purpose is to core and slice apples, it can also, when used correctly, do just as good a job cutting up potatoes. Unfortunately, this multipurpose tool doesn't eliminate the need for a knife.

First, you'll want to cut off the ends of the potato so that it has a flat base to stabilize it. Then, put the potato on a cutting board and place the apple slicer over the top of it, as you would with an apple. Push down until you reach the cutting board and have fully separated all the slices.

Since you are using an apple slicer, you'll end up with one center, cored piece of potato that looks slightly different from the rest. You can cut this cored piece in half with a knife or cut off pieces to make it look more like the rest of the slices. Since potatoes tend to run bigger than apples, you may also want to cut down the other slices, but that's up to your preference.

Overall, the best part about using an apple slicer to prepare your potato wedges is that it will shave down your prep time in the kitchen. The quicker you prep, the sooner you can fry and season the wedges for a crispy plate of tasty homemade fries.