Baked potatoes will come out the oven tastier and crispier if you use 1 simple ingredient

A simple baked potato recipe can be transformed with one easy step.

Whenever a fuss-free midweek supper is required, a baked potato is typically the first port of call. Simple to prepare and difficult to surpass, a perfectly cooked baked potato is a genuine comfort food classic.

That said, without proper preparation, they can end up soggy and shrivelled. The exterior should be a deep golden brown and wonderfully crispy, while piercing the skin should reveal a soft, fluffy centre.

Many people simply coat their baked potatoes in oil and wrap them in foil; however, this approach can result in a mushy skin, as the foil locks in moisture.

Instead, ditch the foil and, alongside the olive oil, coat your potatoes in one straightforward ingredient — salt.

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Salt is the secret to achieving that distinctive crackling skin. The coarse flakes draw moisture from the skin during baking, producing a crust that audibly snaps when sliced.

This ingredient also prevents steam from softening the potato, ensuring the olive oil functions effectively, ultimately delivering a considerably crispier skin.

While table salt will suffice, sea salt is the recommended option. Table salt has a finer texture, resulting in a less impressive crust.

Ordinary sea salt works perfectly well, though rosemary sea salt — readily available at M&S — takes the flavour of baked potatoes to an entirely new level. It also works wonderfully with roast potatoes.

How to make tastier and crispier baked potatoes

Ingredients

• One potato
• Olive oil
• M&S rosemary sea salt
• Toppings – tuna mayo, butter, cheese, or baked beans

Method

1. To start, preheat your oven to 200°C Fan, then thoroughly wash the potato under cold running water and dry it as well as possible using paper towels.
2. Next, pierce the skin all over with a fork. Steam can accumulate inside potatoes, potentially causing them to burst in the oven, and piercing the skin allows the steam to escape.
3. Generously drizzle the olive oil over the potato and coat it in the rosemary salt, ensuring every part of the skin is covered.
4. Before placing the potato in the oven, make use of your microwave. You can put your raw potato straight into the oven if you prefer, but this method can take considerably longer to bake, sometimes upwards of an hour.
5. Additionally, pre-cooking the potato in the microwave helps achieve a wonderfully soft and fluffy centre, without resulting in an overly tough skin.
6. It only requires six to 10 minutes, though eight minutes proved ideal for the potato used here. When it’s ready, the skin should just be beginning to wrinkle.
7. Transfer the potato to a baking tray, being sure to use tongs and an oven mitt, as both the potato and plate will be extremely hot at this stage.
8. This potato required 40 minutes in the oven. It should be tender enough for a knife to slide through the skin with ease.
9. Once the potato is cooked through, leaving it in the oven for a further five minutes will help the skin crisp up even more.

Once cooked, I slice open the top and squeeze the sides to open it up, before fluffing the interior with a fork and piling on the toppings.

On this occasion, I went for tuna mayo, though the options are virtually endless — from baked beans and cheese to chilli con carne, sour cream, or simply a generous knob of butter.