The Best Broth To Roast Potatoes In For Mind-Melting Flavor

If you're looking to amp up the flavor and crispiness of your roasted potatoes, you'll want to try melted potatoes, which are every bit as delicious as they sound. As you may have surmised from the name, the inside of melted potatoes are luscious, moist, and flavorful, like a stick of warm butter. 

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The effect is achieved by double-cooking the potatoes. The initial cook involves roasting seasoned potatoes in the oven on high heat (450 degrees Fahrenheit) for that classic crispy exterior, then covering them with broth before they bake again, soaking up the added moisture. The end result is exactly what you would hope for — crispy on the outside, creamy and savory on the inside.

But what kind of broth should you use? A hearty vegetable broth will certainly provide your spuds with nuanced flavor, but we strongly recommend cooking potatoes in chicken stock, and for one crucial reason: fat. 

Chicken over veggies

Most potatoes are naturally fat-free, and because flavor binds well to fat molecules, the easiest way to amp up the starchy tuber is to add something with a higher fat content — like broth or stock. As vegetable broth is also often light in the flavor department, it's best added to dishes that just need a little something extra; and when it comes to melted potatoes, chicken stock is the way to go.

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Chicken stock is your best choice because it has just enough fat to transmit the flavor, but not so much that the potatoes run the risk of becoming greasy. The ingredient is imbued with a wonderfully complex and meaty taste that will penetrate your potatoes as they cook, giving you a flavor similar to that you could achieve if you roasted them in the tray with the chicken. So for potatoes that are crisp on the outside, creamy on the inside, and full of flavor, add a little chicken stock to your roasting pan.

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