The BEST Home Fried Potatoes Recipe

Crispy, tasty, home-fried potatoes seasoned to perfection and filled with caramelized onions. Home-fried potatoes are my go-to side dish whenever I make a big brunch early weekend afternoons for friends.

Hey yall I’m back in the building!!! I made a YouTube video for this recipe many years ago but never gave you guys measurements. You all have been asking me to create a recipe for home-fried potatoes, so I finally got around to it.

Dad’s big weekend breakfast

Home-fried potatoes, aka home fries, are one of my favorite breakfast side dishes. My father used to make home fries on the weekends for breakfast all the time.

He would serve it with scrambled eggs, toast with jelly, and bacon or pork sausage links. Sometimes, he would fry some HOT sausage to go along with it.

My mother would always make fried fish for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights and my father would sometimes make home fried potatoes the next morning and eat it with any fish that was leftover.

He loved to eat fried fish with Grits too, which is also a good combination. And sometimes, he’d make cheese grits for breakfast, which is a classic southern dish. Lol!

My grandma Gwen and my nana Alice Mae would often make home fries for breakfast, too, but they didn’t make it as good as my pops did. His home fries were just on another level to me.

I remember seeing him sprinkle a little sugar over them as they fried, and that would confuse the living hell out of me as a kid because I thought it would make the home fries sweet. LMBO! But now I understand why he used sugar.

He always used a lot of onions, and by the time the home fries were done, they would be nice and caramelized because he let the onions fry for as long as he cooked the potatoes. That took the home fries to another level.

Common questions about boiling the potatoes

• Do you preheat the water? No! When you boil potatoes, add them to cool water. Don’t preheat; adding them to cool water helps the potatoes cook evenly.
• Do you cover them with a lid? Yes! Cover the potatoes while they’re boiling because that gets them tender faster. You don’t want the boiling process any longer than it has to be because this dish already takes too long to prepare. Lol!
• How to get them firm but tender? Don’t boil them too long. We’re not making mashed potatoes, so we don’t want to boil them until they’re soft as butter. We want them to have a “BITE” and be able to “CUT” into them.
• How do you know when they’re done enough? You can stick a fork or knife into them and they slide off easily. If you stick a fork into them and they fall apart, you probably boiled them for too long.

What you need:

• Potatoes: Russet Potatoes are the way to go. You want a potato that’s high in starch and low in moisture allowing it to crisp up because we want our home fried potatoes on the crispy side.
• Yellow Onions: The caramelized onions give these potatoes life, happiness, peace, and joy, you hear me? Lol! I won’t even make them without onions; that’s a culinary sin! You have to add onions unless you just hate onions. And use yellow onions, they caramelize the best and are potent.
• Peppers (Optional): Now I do add peppers, GREEN AND RED, to beautify my potatoes. They add more flavor but I didn’t use any in the original recipe. If you’re wondering what my onion to pepper ratio is, I always use about half the amount of onions.
• Seasonings: Seasoning Salt, Garlic powder, and black pepper are the only 3 seasonings you need for home fried potatoes, trust me! This combo of seasoning are ALL YOU NEED! I’ve tried a lot of combinations over the years and this one produces the best taste and results.
• Sugar: Ok, so sugar adds depth of flavor and 2. helps the potatoes crisp up and brown a little more. You will notice how much better they taste with a pinch of sugar vs without it. It’s sort of like a secret ingredient that makes the potatoes pop. My nana always used a little which is why I do. Dont worry, the potatoes wont be sweet. Lol!
• Vegetable Oil: Use an oil with a high smoke point like vegetable oil.

How to make home fried potatoes

1. Place the potatoes in a large pot and cover with cool water.
2. Place the pot over high heat, cover with lid leaving a crack on the side, and boil for 40 minutes.
3. Once done, drain the hot water and fill the pot with cool water, then set aside. 
4. While the potatoes are cooling off, slice up the onions.
5. Once the potatoes are cool, peel off the skin, then slice them into 1/16th thick circular-shaped pieces. When you cut them too thin, they cook better and faster and are tender all the way through, but don’t chop them too thin because they’ll break apart and be impossible to flip. I always slice them into 1/16th wide circular-shaped pieces.
   
6. Place a large skillet over medium high heat and add in the oil.
7. After 2 minutes, add in the potatoes, onions, and sprinkle with 1/2 of the seasonings.
   
8. After 7 minutes, flip the potatoes and sprinkle with the remaining half of the seasonings.
   
9. After 7 minutes, flip the home fries again to ensure they’re all crispy.
10. Let them fry for another 2-3 minutes and then cut the fire off.

Tips for success:

• Over-boiling: It’s important not to boil the potatoes for too long because if they’re too tender, there’s no way you can flip them without them falling apart or even slice them for that matter.
• Use a large skillet: Use a large skillet so you can cook them all at once. If you’re using a smaller skillet, fry the potatoes in batches. Cooking too many at once will drop the temperature, cause moisture, and prevent the potatoes from frying. So fry half of the potatoes at a time if a smaller skillet is all you have
• Leave them alone: I add them to the skillet after I let the oil preheat for a few minutes and flip them once I see them browning on one side, which takes about 6-7 minutes. Don’t keep flipping and moving the potatoes because they’ll break and not crisp up.
• Seasoning process: I season them with 1/2 of the seasonings. Once they brown, I flip them and season them with the remaining seasonings.
• 2 Spatulas: Use two spatulas. Place one under the potatoes and over the potatoes when flipping so they don’t splash in the oil too fast while flipping them, and burn yourself.
• When to add in the onions and peppers: You can add the onions and peppers if you decide to use any, at the very beginning if you like them well caramelized, or towards the end if you just want them softened.

What to serve with home-fried potatoes:

• Bacon: Bacon, bacon, bacon!!!! Preferably, crispy fried pork bacon! If you don’t eat pork, fine that’s on you because I love fried pork bacon. Nothing, and I mean nothing, especially meat, goes better with it.
• Sausage: Any sausage would be good long as it’s fried. I sometimes eat my home fries with a fried hot beef sausage, sometimes I eat it with pork links or breakfast sausage. Any sausage will do honestly.
• Fried fish: So as I said to begin this article my pops would eat his home fried potatoes with fried fish. It’s actually a pretty common combo, although pork bacon is probably the most common thing people eat with it.
• Fried Chicken: Fried chicken tastes good with anything! Lol! This would be a great option if you’re eating home fried potatoes for brunch or lunch, which I do on a late Sunday morning, early afternoon.
• Eggs: Aside from meat, eggs, the most popular breakfast side dish, are an obvious choice. I like mine nicely scrambled. You can have them scrambled with cheese or without, they taste great with home fries. 

Storage and reheating

• How to store home-fried potatoes? Just place them in a container or something similar to a Tupperware bowl, make sure they’re tightly sealed, and store them in the refrigerator.
• How to reheat home-fried potatoes? If I had some home-fried potatoes left over, I’d probably place them in a skillet with a little oil and try to fry them over low heat to get them kind of crispy again.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How long do home-fried potatoes last? Two days, I guess? I’m not the biggest fan of saving home-fried potatoes, honestly. They taste best eaten straight out of the pan, and I never have any leftovers to save. Lol!
• What condiments should I use? In terms of condiments for anyone wondering what to dress them up with. I’d say hot sauce, ketchup, or a small amount of both. I put a lil hot sauce on mind all the time. But hot sauce and ketchup are definitely what most people like to use.

Other breakfast recipes you might like:

• McCloud’s Easy Southern Scrapple Recipe
• The Best Homemade Country Sausage Gravy Recipe
• The Best Scrambled Eggs Recipe
• The Best Creamy Southern Style Grits

Equipment:

Here are the cooking utensils you’re going to need. There’s only a few so I hope you have them all on hand. That’ll make the cooking process easier.

• Pot: You need a pot with a lid to boil the potatoes in and a lid to get the potatoes tender.
• Knife: You’re going to need a knife, preferably a sharp knife, to slice the potatoes. It doesn’t have to be huge, but a nice sharp nice is ideal.
• 2 Spatulas: I like to use two wide spatulas when frying potatoes because it makes flipping them so much easier and helps prevent the splashing of hot oil.
• Large skillet: You’re going to need a large skillet because you want there to be a lot of space so the potatoes fry better and quicker, and so they’re not all bunched over each other, which prevents them from frying evenly and getting crispy.
• Measuring Cups: Make sure you have a measuring cup on hand. Whenever you follow a recipe, you want to use the exact measurements and amounts, so using measuring cups is essential.
• Measuring Spoons: Use measuring spoons for the seasonings, especially if you’re making this for the first time and want to follow the recipe to a T and exactly as written.

Alright folks, enough with all the yapping… scroll down and get everything you need for this recipe. Follow it to a T and tell me what you think. I hope yall love it and if you do give me a 5 star rating.

Also, please comment, letting the viewers know what your experience was trying this recipe. And please subscribe and stay in touch so you can receive notifications every time a new delicious recipe is posted. Be blessed and much love.

Enjoy, later!
PBJ ~

The BEST Home Fried Potatoes Recipe

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 2 reviews

• Author: PhillyboyJay
• Prep Time: 1 Hr
• Cook Time: 15 Mins
• Total Time: 1 Hr + 15 Mins
• Yield: 6
• Category: Breakfast
• Method: American
• Cuisine: Soul Food

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Description

Crispy, tasty, home fried potatoes with caramelized onions. A delicious, soul food style, side dish. 

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Ingredients

• 1.5 Lbs Russet Potatoes
• 3 Qts Water
• 1–1/4 Cup Yellow Onions, sliced
• 1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
• 2 Tsps Sugar
• 2 Tsps Seasoning Salt
• 1 Tsp Garlic Powder
• 1/4 Tsp Black Pepper

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Instructions

1. Place the potatoes in a large pot and cover with cool water.
2. Place the pot over high heat, cover with lid leaving a crack on the side, and boil for 40 minutes.
3. Once done, drain the hot water and fill the pot with cool water, then set aside. 
4. While the potatoes are cooling off, slice up the onions.
5. Once the potatoes are cool, peel off the skin, then slice them into 1/16th thick circular-shaped pieces. When you cut them too thin, they cook better and faster and are tender all the way through, but don’t chop them too thin because they’ll break apart and be impossible to flip. I always slice them into 1/16th wide circular-shaped pieces.
6. Place a large skillet over medium high heat and add in the oil.
7. After 2 minutes, add in the potatoes, onions, and sprinkle with 1/2 of the seasonings.
8. After 7 minutes, flip the potatoes and sprinkle with the remaining half of the seasonings.
    
9. After 7 minutes, flip the home fries again to ensure they’re all crispy.
10. Let them fry for another 2-3 minutes and then cut the fire off.

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Nutrition

• Serving Size: 6