A Simple Trick for Peeling Potatoes—No Peeler Required

I thought this potato-peeling hack was too good to be true... Until I tried it.

When you go through as many servings of mashed potatoes as my family does in a typical week, you’re always on the lookout for a new tip or trick to improve this regular side dish.

Take Ina Garten’s easy trick for making mashed potatoes ahead of time, or this one-ingredient upgrade for the fluffiest mashed potatoes that also costs zero dollars. Or, my preferred method for making a big batch of mashed potatoes, which involves steaming, instead of boiling.

So when I saw the below Reel for a potato-peeling hack that seemed too good to be true, I had to try it.

Instead of peeling a potato before boiling it, you score it around its middle, then boil it with its skin on. When the potato pierces easily, you remove it from the boiling water and pull off the skin, which essentially slips right off.

To be honest, I kind of thought I had seen every potato hack there is to see, and I know I’ve come across this particular one at some point. Maybe because I wasn’t making as many mashed potatoes at the time or I doubted the veracity of the trick, I never gave it a chance.

When the video came back around—as good food hacks always do on social media—I decided it was time to make up for lost time, and I was amazed to see it works like a charm! And it was oh-so-satisfying to slip that potato skin off with one easy pull. Wow!

Tips for the Great Potato-Peeling Hack

Before you think your potato-peeling days are over, be warned that there’s more to the story. Here’s my rundown to ensure this trick works like a charm for you, too.

1. Try This With Russet Potatoes Only: This trick only works with potatoes with thick skin, like Russets. Don’t try this on Yukon golds or any other thin-skinned, waxy potato. I tried both and the results were dramatically different. I had to tear off the skin of the Yukon potato, while the Russet’s skin slid off easily.

2. Score Carefully: When you’re scoring around the center of the potato, be as precise as possible. Try to make only one shallow slice around the potato, instead of multiple. The more incisions you make, the more pieces you’ll have to pull off, and the more time you’ll lose. Use a sharp paring knife or kitchen shears.

3. Use a Cake Tester for Checking Doneness: On the same note as keeping the score around the potato clean and minimal, try not to pierce too much of the skin when you’re testing for doneness. When I stuck a fork into one potato, the multiple incision points caused the skin to tear, which ultimately led to more pieces for me to pull off. Using a cake tester left the skin intact.

4. Cool the Boiled Potato in an Ice Bath: This is perhaps the most important advice aside from the best kind of potato to use, and a step that wasn’t covered in the Reel above. Place the potato into an ice bath after removing it from the boiling water, and let it sit until it’s cool enough to handle, which is about 30 seconds. Without this step, you risk severely burning your fingers!

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The Verdict

If you follow the tips above, this trick is great for a big batch that you’re planning to mash, use for shepherd’s pie, roll into gnocchi, or use in any other recipe that calls for Russet potatoes without the skin. I was impressed with how easily the skin slipped off—no peeler was required at all.

There’s just one catch: It takes a long time for a whole potato to boil: 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the size of the potato. If you’ve peeled and cut up a potato ahead of boiling, the process takes much less time: 15 to 20 minutes.

In other words, if you’re planning to mash only one or two potatoes, the time saved with this hack does not outweigh the time it takes to peel, chop, and boil a couple of potatoes. If you’re planning to boil a bunch of potatoes—always consider a double batch, because mashed potatoes freeze well!—and you don’t like peeling or aren’t the fastest peeler, then this trick is for you. It’s also incredibly satisfying, which alone may make it worth a go!

Read the original article on Simply Recipes.