8 Delicious Potato Dishes to Add to Your Cooking Repertoire

Potatoes – the mainstay of almost every British weekly repertoire. Whether you’re living it up with a bubbling dish of dauphinoise or keeping things simple with a buttery pile of mash, it’s likely the humble spud will appear in some guise in at least half your weekly meals.

And there’s good reason for it. Potatoes are cheap, hugely versatile, filling and, at a time when meat has become increasingly expensive, brilliant for stretching a meal a little further. A few potatoes can turn a couple of chicken thighs into dinner for four, bulk out a Sunday roast or become the star of the plate in their own right.

But there’s a whole world beyond mash, chips and roasties. From the buttery layers of Pommes Anna to crisp rösti and beautifully golden fondant potatoes, some of the best potato dishes are surprisingly simple to make at home.

So, in celebration of the humble spud, here are eight classic potato dishes worth adding to your repertoire.

1. Boulanger Potatoes

Boulanger potatoes are one of those dishes that look far more sophisticated than the amount of effort involved would suggest.

Thinly sliced potatoes are layered with onions, covered with stock and slowly baked until the potatoes underneath are soft and silky while those poking out of the top become beautifully golden and crisp.

Unlike dauphinoise, there’s no cream involved, making boulanger potatoes considerably lighter and particularly good alongside roast lamb, chicken or pork.

The name is traditionally linked to French village bakeries. Households without their own ovens would take dishes to the local baker to cook in the residual heat of the bread oven – hence pommes boulangère, or baker’s potatoes.

Ingredients

1kg floury potatoes
2 large onions, thinly sliced
500ml chicken or vegetable stock
40g butter
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
Salt and black pepper

Method

Heat the oven to 180°C fan.

Peel the potatoes and slice them very thinly – a mandoline makes this considerably quicker, although a sharp knife works perfectly well.

Melt half the butter in a frying pan and gently cook the onions for around 10 minutes until soft but not browned. Add the garlic for the final minute.

Butter a baking dish, then arrange alternating layers of potato and onion, seasoning with salt, pepper and a little thyme as you go. Finish with a neat layer of overlapping potatoes.

Pour the hot stock over the potatoes and dot the remaining butter across the top.

Bake for around 1 hour 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are completely tender and the top is crisp and deeply golden.

2. Dauphinoise Potatoes

If boulanger potatoes are the sensible option, dauphinoise is their gloriously indulgent cousin.

This French classic combines wafer-thin potatoes with cream, garlic and seasoning before slowly baking everything together until the potatoes practically melt into the sauce.

And despite what you may have encountered in restaurants, traditional gratin dauphinois doesn’t actually require cheese. The richness comes from the cream and the starch released by the potatoes as they cook.

Ingredients

1kg potatoes
500ml double cream
150ml whole milk
2 garlic cloves
25g butter
A pinch of nutmeg
Salt and black pepper

Method

Heat the oven to 160°C fan.

Peel and thinly slice the potatoes. Don’t rinse them afterwards – you want to retain the starch because it helps thicken the cream.

Rub a baking dish with a cut garlic clove before generously buttering it.

Put the cream, milk and remaining garlic into a saucepan with a good pinch of salt, black pepper and nutmeg. Warm gently without allowing it to boil.

Layer the potatoes in the dish, then pour over the warm cream mixture. Press everything down gently so the potatoes are mostly submerged.

Bake for around 1 hour 30 minutes until completely tender, bubbling around the edges and beautifully browned on top.

Leave it to stand for 10 minutes before serving. It will thicken slightly and, importantly, you won’t remove the roof of your mouth with molten cream.

3. Cheesy Potato Gratin

Dauphinoise and potato gratin are often used interchangeably, but for our purposes we’re making the distinction very simple: this is the cheesy one.

Think layers of tender potato surrounded by cream and melted Gruyère with a deeply golden, slightly crisp top.

It’s unapologetically rich, which is precisely why you don’t need much of it. Serve alongside steak, roast chicken or simply something green and pretend that balances everything out.

Ingredients

1kg potatoes
400ml double cream
150ml whole milk
2 garlic cloves, crushed
150g Gruyère, grated
30g Parmesan, finely grated
25g butter
Salt and black pepper

Method

Heat the oven to 170°C fan and butter a baking dish.

Peel and thinly slice the potatoes.

Warm the cream, milk and garlic gently in a saucepan and season generously.

Arrange a layer of potatoes in the dish, pour over a little cream and scatter with Gruyère. Continue layering until everything has been used, finishing with cream and cheese.

Scatter the Parmesan over the top.

Bake for around 1 hour 15 minutes until a knife passes easily through the potatoes and the top has developed a gorgeous golden crust.

If it’s browning too quickly before the potatoes are cooked, loosely cover it with foil and remove it again for the final 15 minutes.

4. Pommes Anna

Few ingredients demonstrate quite how brilliant potatoes can be better than Pommes Anna.

At its simplest, this classic French dish consists of potatoes, butter, salt and pepper. That’s essentially it.

The magic comes from arranging extremely thin slices of potato in overlapping circles before cooking them until they form a crisp, buttery golden cake with a soft centre.

It’s one of those dishes that earns you considerably more culinary credit than the ingredient list suggests.

Ingredients

1kg potatoes
100g unsalted butter, melted
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
A few thyme leaves, optional

Method

Heat the oven to 190°C fan.

Peel and slice the potatoes as thinly and evenly as possible.

Brush a 20–22cm ovenproof frying pan generously with melted butter.

Arrange the first layer of potatoes very neatly in overlapping circles – remember, this becomes the top when you turn it out.

Brush with butter, season and repeat with the remaining potatoes, pressing the layers down as you go.

Cook over a medium heat on the hob for around 5 minutes to begin crisping the base.

Transfer to the oven for approximately 45–55 minutes until the potatoes are completely tender.

Carefully invert onto a plate so that the crisp golden underside becomes the top.

Cut into wedges to serve.

5. Hasselback Potatoes

Hasselback potatoes sit somewhere between a baked potato and a roast potato, which frankly isn’t a bad place to be.

The potatoes are sliced repeatedly almost – but crucially not completely – through. As they roast, the slices fan apart, allowing butter or oil to work its way between them while the exposed edges become increasingly crisp.

They originated in Sweden and have subsequently been subjected to every topping imaginable. But you really don’t need to complicate them. Garlic, butter, herbs and plenty of salt are enough.

Ingredients

8 medium potatoes
60g butter, melted
2 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely grated
A few sprigs of rosemary or thyme
Sea salt
Black pepper

Method

Heat the oven to 200°C fan.

Place each potato between the handles of two wooden spoons and make thin cuts across it. The spoon handles stop your knife going all the way through the potato.

Mix the melted butter with the olive oil and brush generously over the potatoes.

Season and roast for 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and gently encourage the slices apart before brushing them again, this time allowing the butter to run between the layers. Add the garlic and herbs.

Return to the oven for another 30–40 minutes until the centres are fluffy and the edges crisp.

Give them one final sprinkle of flaky salt before serving.

6. Fondant Potatoes

Fondant potatoes are restaurant potatoes.

You know the ones: beautifully browned cylinders sitting underneath a piece of beef or lamb, looking as though someone in a professional kitchen has spent hours fussing over them.

They’re actually surprisingly achievable at home.

The potatoes are browned in butter before being partially submerged in stock and roasted with garlic and herbs. The result is a deeply caramelised exterior and an almost ridiculously soft, buttery centre.

Ingredients

4 large floury potatoes
2 tbsp vegetable oil
50g butter
250ml chicken or vegetable stock
3 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
4 sprigs of thyme
Salt and black pepper

Method

Heat the oven to 200°C fan.

Peel the potatoes and cut away the rounded sides to create thick cylinders. Cut each cylinder into pieces roughly 5cm tall.

Pat them thoroughly dry and season generously.

Heat the oil in an ovenproof frying pan and place the potatoes flat-side down. Cook without moving them for around 5 minutes until deeply golden.

Turn and brown the opposite side.

Reduce the heat before adding the butter, garlic and thyme. Allow the butter to foam and spoon it repeatedly over the potatoes.

Carefully pour the stock into the pan – it should come roughly halfway up the potatoes rather than cover them.

Transfer to the oven and cook for around 30 minutes until a knife slides easily into the centre.

Spoon some of that buttery, garlicky cooking liquor over them before serving.

7. Pommes Duchesse

If mashed potatoes got dressed up for dinner, they’d probably become Pommes Duchesse.

Also known as Duchess potatoes, they’re made from buttery mash enriched with egg yolks before being piped into little swirls and baked until crisp and golden around the edges.

They have a wonderfully retro feel to them, but there’s a reason dishes like this survive. They’re delicious, they look impressive and you can prepare them ahead – always useful when you’re cooking a big dinner.

Ingredients

1kg floury potatoes
60g butter
3 egg yolks
50ml double cream
A pinch of nutmeg
Salt and white or black pepper
1 beaten egg for glazing

Method

Peel and cut the potatoes into evenly sized pieces before boiling in well-salted water until tender.

Drain thoroughly, then return them to the hot pan for a minute or two to allow excess moisture to evaporate.

Mash until completely smooth. For particularly silky potatoes, pass them through a potato ricer.

Beat in the butter, cream and egg yolks before seasoning with salt, pepper and a small amount of nutmeg.

Transfer the mixture to a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle.

Pipe generous swirls onto a lined baking tray and lightly brush with beaten egg.

Bake at 200°C fan for around 15–20 minutes until the ridges are crisp and golden.

8. Potato Rösti

Finally, proof that sometimes potatoes really don’t need much help at all.

Swiss rösti is essentially grated potato cooked until it forms a thick cake with a crisp golden exterior and tender centre. And while that sounds incredibly straightforward, the difference between excellent rösti and a greasy pile of grated potato comes down to one important thing: get rid of the moisture.

Once you’ve cracked that, it’s an incredibly useful dish to have in your repertoire.

Serve rösti alongside eggs for breakfast, underneath smoked salmon, with sausages, alongside a steak or simply topped with a dollop of soured cream and some chopped chives.

Ingredients

800g waxy or all-purpose potatoes
30g butter
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Salt
Black pepper

Method

Parboil the potatoes whole and unpeeled for around 8 minutes. You want them beginning to soften but still very firm in the middle.

Drain, cool completely and ideally refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

Peel the potatoes and coarsely grate them.

Season well, but don’t mash or compress the strands together too much.

Heat half the butter and oil in a non-stick frying pan. Add the grated potato and gently shape it into an even cake.

Cook over a medium-low heat for around 10–15 minutes until the underside is crisp and deeply golden.

Place a large plate over the pan and carefully invert the rösti onto it. Add the remaining butter to the pan, then slide the rösti back in to cook the other side.

Give it another 10 minutes or so until beautifully crisp.

Serve immediately.

The Humble Potato Deserves Better

There’s nothing wrong with mash. In fact, give me a bowl containing enough butter and seasoning and I’m perfectly happy. The same goes for a really good roast potato.

But considering how inexpensive and endlessly adaptable potatoes are, it’s surprisingly easy to get stuck cooking the same two or three versions week after week.

That’s what makes these dishes worth knowing. Boulanger potatoes can make an inexpensive joint of meat go considerably further; dauphinoise can transform a fairly ordinary steak into something that feels like a treat; fondants bring restaurant cooking home; and a crisp rösti can turn a couple of eggs into a proper meal.

The humble spud might be one of the cheapest ingredients in the weekly shop – but treat it properly and it certainly doesn’t have to taste like it.

Joanne Brook-Smith is a writer and editor with two decades of publishing experience. She launched Crave Magazine during the Covid period to create a fresh, inspiring space for food, travel and lifestyle content.