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This Crispy Smashed Potato recipe is flavorful, fluffy, and covered in garlic butter and cheese. Made on a sheet pan, these crispy potatoes are a great side dish for any occasion.
If you've never had a crispy, creamy-yet-fluffy, smashed potato covered in garlic and parmesan cheese, honey you are missing out! Think mashed potatoes meets crispy french fries but using baby potatoes and not boiled or fried. They're so good you're going to want at least half of the pan.
Fluffy and creamy on the inside, crispy, garlicky, cheesy, and buttery on the outside, they make such an easy recipe and are 100% one of my family's favorite side dish recipes. It also makes a great tailgating/big football game finger food, too!
The potatoes are technically 'twice baked' because we roast them to get them nice and fork tender, then give them a good smash and then back into the oven covered in garlic and butter...then cover in cheese and broil. Once I caught on to making crispy smashed potatoes, I was hooked.
With mind-blowingly crispy crunchy edges and amazing garlic butter flavor, you'll want these in the best serving platter on the dinner table whether its a weeknight or Thanksgiving dinner.
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How to Make Garlic Smashed Potatoes
The process is pretty straight forward: roast, smash and butter, roast and broil. If you're a visual learner, I shot a video showing exactly how easy these crispy smashed potatoes are to make.
Oil, salt, and roast your potatoes in a single layer on a large baking sheet lined with aluminum foil or parchment paper. The first roast will get the potatoes nice and fork tender and ready for the next step.
Smash the cooked potatoes. Use a potato masher, a large fork, or the bottom of a cup to smash the potatoes semi-flat. This is what will give us those extra crispy smashed potatoes.
Slather the top of the potatoes in melted butter with a few cloves of minced or pressed garlic and some red pepper flakes for a little spice using a pastry brush. The garlic butter has so much flavor!
You can add some oil if you're worried about the high heat, but I've never had a problem with anything burning. We really want that buttery flavor and we want the fat to give the potatoes those crunchy edges so brush on a really generous amount.
Roast those little potatoes again in the hot oven til they are golden brown with crispy edges.
Sprinkle some freshly grated parmesan cheese and give a quick broil to melt it.
Serve nice and hot with a little sprinkle of fresh herbs. So good!
Ingredients
Baby or Small New Potatoes. Many people consider any small potatoes a 'new potato', but new potatoes are actually potatoes that are freshly dug up and not cured like most potatoes you'll find at your grocery stores. Their skins are thinner and more fragile, but you're more likely to find them at the farmers' market.
Baby potatoes are small versions of potatoes that were harvested before they grew to their normal large size. The size of your potatoes matters here, larger potatoes take longer to cook and are harder to mash. You're looking for potatoes about the size of a golf ball, and no russet potatoes. They aren't the type we need.
I used baby red potatoes and baby yukon gold potatoes, but use whatever ones you like. I also like the baby purple potatoes, they're so cute!
Salted Butter. Yep, not telling you to use unsalted this time! We want salty butter because potatoes need lots of salt for good flavor.
Garlic Cloves. I love fresh garlic but if you're worried about it getting a little too tasty, use garlic powder. Oooh, even better? Melt down the butter with the garlic cloves in a saucepan on the stove to make an infused garlic oil. Bonus points for infusing it with fresh herbs like fresh thyme, too.
Red Pepper Flakes. Just for a bit of spice. It can be optional or you can add more if you love that spiciness.
Parmesan Cheese. Use. The. Real Stuff. Go get the wedge and grate it with a microplane or a box grater...please. It's like $4-$6. I'm begging you: don't use the parm scraps and sawdust mix in the green can.
Kosher Salt or Sea Salt, Black Pepper. Salt your potatoes!
What to Serve with Crispy Smashed Potatoes
I like how versatile these potatoes are, you can serve them up like you would with potato wedges, dressed down with a juicy burger, have them with an easy roast chicken dinner, or let them dress up as a fancy side of crispy golden potatoes next to the Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas rib roast.
Serve them with delicious chipotle aioli or drizzled with balsamic vinegar, or scoop up a sour cream based dip like a chip or dip into a little bowl of bang bang sauce. Drizzle on some lime juice or an avocado crema and serve with some bomb steak fajitas. The possibilities are endless.
These crispy garlic parmesan smashed potatoes are almost guaranteed to be your new favorite side dish. I swear, you might even love these more than mashed potatoes!
How to Reheat and Store
If you have leftovers (which, honey, you'll be hard pressed to have them! You can gobble them up like fries.) microwave on a microwave-safe plate until warmed through. You can also throw them into a low oven (about 325 degrees F, or even 300 degrees F) on a baking sheet until warmed through, maybe about 10 to 15 minutes.
Make sure to store them in an airtight container in the fridge. They'll stay good for up to 4 days.
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Crispy Garlic Smashed Potatoes
Ingredients
- Vegetable Oil
- 2 lbs baby red or gold potatoes, scrubbed
- 6 tablespoon salted butter
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ½ cup shredded parmesan cheese
- kosher salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
- Cover a large baking sheet pan with foil, give a light coat of vegetable oil over the pan. Then place washed potatoes onto sheet pan and drizzle the tops of the potatoes with more oil to lightly coat. Sprinkle generously with kosher salt. Roast potatoes in the preheated for 35-40 minutes, or until potatoes are fork tender.
- Using a potato masher, the bottom of a glass or mug, or a large serving fork, press the potatoes so that they flatten and break open. It's okay if they break apart a little, that makes for more crispy edges.
- Put the minced garlic, red pepper flakes, about ½ teaspoon of black pepper, and salted butter in a small microwave-safe bowl, and microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minutes, until butter is melted. Brush tops of potatoes with the garlic butter generously and evenly.
- Roast potatoes for about 10-15 minutes or until tops start to turn golden brown and crispy.
- Sprinkle the garlic butter smashed potatoes with parmesan and place back into the oven. Turn the broiler on low heat (or high, if you watch cautiously) for 2-3 minutes or until cheese is melted and browned a little.
- Remove potatoes from oven and give a little seasoning with a generous pinch of salt and pepper to taste. Let potatoes cool slightly before serving.
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