One Extra Step Gets You The Tastiest, Creamiest Baked Potato You've Ever Had

Baked potatoes are one of those foods that fit snugly into the comfort food category. A great baked potato gives a crispy crackle when you cut into it, releases an aromatic potatoey steam, and almost melts in the mouth with every bite. But they are as easy to get wrong as they are to get right. You could end up with an undercooked potato, an overcooked one that has gone hard and lost its flavor, or somewhere in between that just doesn't give that balance of delicious crispy outside and flavorsome fluffy and creamy inside. It all comes down to good prep and the right amount of cooking time. The latter is probably the most difficult to get right, but there is a really simple trick to give your potatoes a head start before slotting them into the oven.

Simply pop your spuds into the steamer for 20 to 25 minutes (or longer if you have larger potatoes) to pre-cook them and soften them up — this cooks the inside beautifully while keeping it light and fluffy (and at the same time keeps the skin intact). You can then pierce your potatoes more easily to deeply soak in the butter, herbs, and salt — or whatever flavors you are cooking with — before hitting the oven. Then all the oven has to do is finish off the last bit of cooking and take the skin from firm to gorgeously crispy. Plus, it will cut down your cooking time in the oven, which normally takes anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes.

Now you could boil your potatoes instead of steaming, but steaming generally wins, especially if you want all the natural flavor that your potatoes can give. Plus it helps retain the nutrients packed in there, which drain out into the water when you boil the spuds. It's also a time-saver to steam instead of boil, as there is a far smaller volume of water for the steamer to heat up before kicking into cooking action. Steaming also lessens the amount of water that the potatoes' starch granules absorb because steam is made up of far finer molecules of water, which means less water is absorbed than with the pot of water that the potatoes are immersed in when boiling.

Some of the best potatoes for baking are incidentally also good for steaming. Your all-purpose potatoes like Yukon Gold hold a low-to-middling amount of moisture and have a solid amount of starch. But the most widely used potatoes for baking are the more floury potatoes like russet potatoes, which are known to deliver fluffy and creamy interiors. You will then want to rub each potato with a bit of olive oil and give it a good salting, then pop each one onto its own piece of tin foil, atop a teaspoon of good butter mixed with garlic and herbs. Wrap them up into little packages and let them bake at 450 degrees Fahrenheit until the last 10 minutes remain. Then open up the foil and allow them to bake uncovered for that final crisp.