Hasselback Potatoes

If you are anything like me, you read a LOT of food blogs and notice that certain foods start trending, e.g. bacon bourbon brownies. Lately, one of the more popular items I have been seeing is hasselback potatoes. I was totally intrigued by these, not only because they looked delicious with their crispy tops, but also because the presentation is dynamite!

After doing a little internet searching on how to make those cuts and realizing it was actually doable, I sorted through some recipes and went for it! Surprisingly, these are pretty straightforward and taste terrific.

Hasselback Potatoes

The Necessities... (Adapted from about 10 recipes!)

• 4 yukon gold potatoes (medium size)
• 3-4 tablespoons of melted butter
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon of paprika
• 2 tablespoons of Parmesean cheese
• Salt and Pepper

To begin, I peeled the potatoes and cut off the ends. After watching a few videos, I realized that the cuts were not as tricky as I thought. The secret is to place something along the sides of the potatoes - like chopsticks or wooden spoons - to prevent your knife from going all the way through on the cuts, and preventing you from having to think about it too much. Genius, right?!

Hasselback Potato Trick!

While my slices weren't totally straight, I did improve the more I cut. The closer you can make your slices the better - you want the potato to be almost flexible so that you can get all the goodies down between each slice. I placed the potatoes in an oven-safe baking dish that was large enough for all of the potatoes to fit in but not so big that they were swimming.

I then poured half of the butter over the potatoes. Next, I stuffed the thin slices of garlic in between the slices - not only would it give great garlic flavor to each bite, but it also helped create a bit more space between the slices that weren't fanning out as nicely as I wanted them to. I then drizzled the last bit of butter over the top and sprinkled the paprika and cheese on the potatoes to finish them off.

Close up on the garlic!

Ready for the oven

Once ready, the potatoes went into a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes. Actually I am lying: I did not plan very well and had meat in the oven for dinner, and since I don't have double ovens the potatoes were initially cooked at only 375 degrees, which is why they are not super browned. Had I actually cooked these by themselves, I would have cooked them at 425 for 30 minutes, checked on them, maybe add a bit more butter and then cook for an additional 20-30 minutes, until golden brown. I also put the cheese on when I first put them in the oven. Next time I would either do that and use tin foil over the potatoes for the first 30 minutes, or I would just add the cheese at the 30 minute mark to prevent the cheese from over browning.

Dinner is served!

As a first attempt at Hasselback potatoes with some oven issues, I was super impressed by how easy these were for how great the presentation is. If you have been intimidated by these, don't be - definitely give them a shot!