How to Make a Perfect Baked Potato

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How to make a perfect baked potato, including a clever time-saving trick! This method gives a super fluffy middle, and a crispy skin – utterly perfect!

A crispy jacket potato on a plate, topped with melted butter and grated cheese.

I know some of you reading this will have made hundreds of baked potatoes in your lives, and will already be completely happy with you potato technique. If that’s the case, congratulations! And feel free to skip this one.

But judging by the popularity of my ‘how to make perfect roast potatoes‘ post (which is somehow one of the most popular posts on this blog!), I also know that you might be quite new to cooking for yourself.

Or, maybe you’ve just never ventured into the world of baked potatoes before (you’re going to love it). Or maybe you’re just nosey and you want to see how I make mine. In which case, hello fellow nosey person! Read on.

A crispy baked potato stuffed with grated cheese and melted butter.

In the UK, we call baked potatoes ‘jacket potatoes’ because they’re soft and fluffy in the middle, with a crispy jacket surrounding them.

It’s one of the more adorable food terms we have, and possibly the one that makes most sense (it certainly beats ‘toad in the hole‘, anyway).

I really do think that baked potatoes are underrated – they’re not exactly haute cuisine, but they make a brilliant easy dinner, either served alongside something else, or on their own with some kind of topping. My personal favourite is butter and cheddar cheese – when something is so perfect, why complicate it?

I feel I should add a little disclaimer here (I know you guys are all lovely, but you’d be surprised how many people enjoy complaining on the Internet) – this is just one way to make a baked potato.

If you use a different method, great! But personally I think my way of making a baked potato is the perfect way to get a fluffy middle and a crispy skin. Yum.

So, without further ado…

How to make a perfect baked potato

1. Choose the right potato

In the UK, bags of potatoes often tell you what they’re best for – great for mashing, roasting, baking, etc. If you’re not lucky enough to have things spelled out for you quite this clearly, try Maris Pipers, King Edwards, Yukon Golds, or Rooster potatoes.

You can find out lots more about different potato varieties here!

Choose quite a large potato for optimum baked potato-ness, and remove any eyes or sprouts.

A raw potato on a plate.

2. Wash thoroughly and prick with a fork

Piercing the potato’s skin with a fork will stop it from splitting when it cooks. You don’t need to pierce it deeply – just a few times all over is fine.

A raw potato being pricked by a fork.

3. Cook in the microwave until the centre is almost soft

Part-cooking in the microwave is my baked potato’s dirty little secret. You can just put your raw potato straight into the oven if you like, but they can take ages to bake – sometimes a good hour or more – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

Plus, I’ve found that pre-cooking them in the microwave helps to give a really soft and fluffy middle, without ending up with a really hard and thick skin.

Cook the potato in the microwave for around 6-10 minutes (depending on the size of your potato), or until the centre is almost entirely soft (poke it with a fork or sharp knife to test it). Turn the potato over halfway to ensure even cooking. When it’s ready, the skin should be just starting to wrinkle.

A part-cooked potato on a plate.

4. Lightly drizzle with oil

I never used to oil my jacket potatoes, but it makes such a difference to getting a super crispy skin, and will make your baked potato taste amazing too. Just drizzle over a tiny amount of oil, and rub it all over the skin of the potato. You can also add a little sprinkle of salt at this stage too.

A baked potato rubbed with oil on a baking tray.

5. Bake!

Finally, you can actually bake your baked potato. Since the potato is already mostly cooked, you can bake it for as long as you like really – anything from ten minutes to half an hour – to get the skin to your desired crispiness.

A crispy baked potato on a baking tray.

And then it’s just time to cut it open and stuff! In my opinion, a dollop of butter is a must. Just watch it melt…

A gif showing butter melting onto a baked potato.

And then it’s just time to add your toppings! As you can probably tell from the abundance of cheese recipes on this site, I’m partial to a bit of grated cheddar (and potentially a little heavy handed with it too…), but the options are endless.

Baked beans, sweetcorn, and coleslaw are some of my favourites – feel free to leave your ideas in the comments!

So there you have it – how to make a perfect baked potato, Becca-style. What’s your favourite technique?

Close up photo of a baked potato stuffed with grated cheese.

How to make a perfect baked potato

How to make a perfect baked potato, including a clever time-saving trick! This method gives a super fluffy middle, and a crispy skin – utterly perfect!

If you’ve cooked this recipe, don’t forget to leave a star rating!

4.98 from 35 votes
Print Pin Comment
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Servings: 1
Calories: 344kcal
Author: Becca Heyes

Ingredients

  • 1 large potato
  • 1/2 tsp oil

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 190°C (Gas Mark 5 / 375°F).
  • Thoroughly wash the potato, and remove any eyes or sprouts. Prick a few times all over with a fork.
  • Place on a microwave-safe plate, and cook in the microwave for around 6-10 minutes (depending on the size of the potato), until the centre is almost entirely cooked and the skin is just starting to wrinkle. Turn over halfway through cooking.
  • Drizzle the potato lightly with oil, and rub it all over the skin.
  • Bake the potato until the skin has reached your desired level of crispiness – anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes.

Video

Nutrition

Nutrition Facts
How to make a perfect baked potato
Amount Per Serving (1 large baked potato)
Calories 344 Calories from Fat 64
% Daily Value*
Fat 7.1g11%
Saturated Fat 1g5%
Cholesterol 0mg0%
Sodium 22mg1%
Potassium 1554mg44%
Carbohydrates 64.5g22%
Fiber 8.1g32%
Sugar 2.9g3%
Protein 7.5g15%
Calcium 30mg3%
Iron 2.9mg16%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on your exact ingredients. Please calculate your own nutritional values if you require accuracy for health reasons.

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82 Comments

  1. One of the best toppings is egg salad. You know, the stuff you put in an egg and lettuce sandwich. Trust me, it’s delicious.

      1. We used to have a small chain of jacket potato shops in my part of south London – now, alas, sadly demised. One of our favourite fillings was what was called “egg and cheese” but was in fact egg mayonnaise with grated cheese and a little onion in there. It was one of the first meals our daughter used to cook for us.

  2. Another thing you can do to speed up cooking time is to poke a metal skewer through them – you can buy them specially for potatoes, I believe. Years ago, back in the days before microwaves (and yes, I am that old), one of my grandmothers gave me a special gadget that you could sit four potatoes on, like some gruesome implement of torture, and that, too, reduced the cooking time by over half. Oh, here is the gadget I mean.

  3. Never knew these were called jacket potatoes in England – makes sense though! Love that you baked these in the end — will have to try this! I usually go the quick microwave route, but with only a few mins in hte oven I bet it makes a world of difference!

  4. I do mine like this on pizza nights, they only get the same time as the pizza in the oven! I like to top mine with coleslaw, but it has to be deli style or the proper stuff, none of your reduced fat, which tastes nasty when put on the spud. Otherwise, beans and cheeese.

    I will occasionally cook them completely in the oven if I’m baking (rare event in the Kennedy house, especially since I’ve been brave enough to make Welsh cakes) or making something that needs a longish cooking time. But that needs planning…

  5. Great how-to. I always struggle with making baked potatoes. I either overcook them or undercook them. You never would’ve thought that making a baked potato could be so difficult and yet, something always goes awry!! This was definitely a handy read!

    1. Haha I find that starting them off in the microwave really helps! That way they only need to go in the oven to crisp up, so you can take them out whenever they look crispy without worrying about whether the middle is cooked :)

  6. I love baked potatoes. I hadn’t thought of part-baking them in the microwave first though. I’ve always believed that potatoes shouldn’t be put in the microwave but I suppose to start them off in one to cut down on the cooking time isn’t a bad idea!

    1. It really does cut down on the cooking time and avoids that horrible thick, hard skin that baked potatoes can sometimes have. I don’t think I’d ever cook potatoes entirely in the microwave, but part-cooking them in it works really well!

  7. I made jacket potatoes at home from scratch before but I don’t own a microwave so I would boil them for at least 30 minutes before putting them in oven to bake. They still take ages before they are ready though! I read somewhere that coating them with oil and salt is the key to make them crispy on the outside.