You Should Be Burning Baked Potatoes On Purpose As A Treat

If you're a fan of the spud, you know they're delicious whether they are twice-baked potatoes, or cooked in the smoker, or if you mash or hash them. But what about searing your taters directly in the heart of burning charcoal or in the ashes of a dying flame? This cooking method takes nothing but ash or charcoal (and patience), so it's ideal if you adore flavorful food but don't have strong enough cooking chops to make Michelin-star potatoes just yet.

So, what is an ash-baked potato? It's as simple as it sounds. The most traditional method involves directly placing your potato onto hot coals and covering them with hot coals. This creates a den of heat that lets your potatoes bake evenly while retaining moisture, giving your tater a fluffy and soft interior infused with a delightful smoky flavor. It takes around 40 to 90 minutes to fully cook, depending on the potato's size and thickness, which isn't much longer than the 20 to 60 minutes it takes to oven-roast a potato. Martha Stewart suggests wrapping the potato in aluminum foil before placing it in ash from a fireplace or fire pit or directly on the charcoal of a grill. This is great if you want to eat the potato skin without having to scrape charcoal from it.

Ash roasting your potatoes infuses them with a complex smokiness that elevates the taste without you having to add a thing (though, of course, you can use these cooked spuds in any potato dish, including millionaire mashed potatoes.) This saves time for busy cooks scrambling to save every last minute at the end of a long day. Also important: it's easy. Just stick your spuds in the coals or ash and let 'em sit, and you'll have a delicious side all on its own in just a couple of hours.

They're also a more nutritious way of preparing your potatoes. Baking potatoes with the skin on leaves many of their nutrients intact, like vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium. There were some concerns about the potential connection between burnt food and cancer in the past that caused people to take a step back from using ash and charcoal when cooking, but the acrylamide in burnt food doesn't actually have good evidence supporting its role as a cancer risk. This means you can employ the ancient method of ash baking and revel in potatoes with a perfectly fluffy, dry-roasted texture and deeply delicious taste.