Gone are the days of french fries being a hassle to make.

I thought about titling this post “French Fries, Every Day,” because this method is truly that easy. And dangerous for the waistline. You can get piping hot, crispy french fries ready to go in 30 minutes or less, in the convenience of your own kitchen, every night your heart desires.

What I love about this french-fry-method is that it’s simple, fast, pretty much foolproof, and really easy to scale up for a crowd or down to a single serving. It’s also prime for prepping ahead and timing the cooking so that they come off the stove just when you need them to be ready. Oh, and another thing: they’re relatively safe as far as frying foods in hot oil goes. Let me explain.

The method (weren’t you dying to know?!?) is called cold fry. The concept is that you start with your cut potatoes in cold oil, bring up the temperature to a boil, and then continue to cook until crispy and golden. There’s no moving things in and out of hot oil, and there’s no double-frying (a technique some swear by to get extra crispy fries), which means less opportunity for hot oil burns and spills.

Once I discovered this method of frying french fries, I never went back. What’s more, I now consider french fries an easy side dish. Amazing!

If you poke around the internet you can find more exact measurements for this recipe, but it’s kind of unnecessary. I’ll give the general guidelines below and you can discover for yourself just how simple, delicious and quick homemade french fries can be. Be sure to read the notes section where there are more tips!

quick and crispy french fries

Ingredients:

russet potatoes (figure about 1 medium-sized potato per person)
frying oil* (canola, vegetable, and peanut oil are standard choices; I’ve done half canola and half olive oil before)
salt

Directions:

Wash and peel potatoes and slice longways into 1/4-inch matchsticks. Place sliced potatoes in the bottom of a good-sized pot (see note).
Cover the potatoes with oil. You want them to be pretty much completely covered, but it’s okay if a few of the sliced potatoes are sticking out above the oil’s surface.
Turn the heat to high and bring the oil to a rolling boil, stirring every once in a while to prevent the potatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pot. After about 10 minutes, once the potatoes start to cook and soften, you don’t want to stir them because they will break into pieces. You’ll know when they are too soft to stir because they’ll break when the spoon touches them—so just leave them alone to cook at that point. After another 5-10 minutes at a rolling boil, the potatoes begin to firm up and take on color, at which point you can continue to stir the pot frequently so they cook evenly. Let them continue to cook until a deep golden.*
Turn off heat, remove fries from hot oil with a slotted spoon, and let them drain off excess oil on a pan or cooling rack lined with a brown paper bag or paper towels. Sprinkle liberally with salt and enjoy your fresh, piping hot french fries!

notes

pot size: figure on the volume of the oil doubling when it reaches a boil and is bubbling; you don’t want to take any risks so err on the side of a larger pot. I find a medium-sized saucepan works well for roughy 1-3 small/medium potatoes, but if I’m doing any more than that I scale up to my dutch oven or soup pot.
cook time: cook time varies with the amount of potatoes and oil being used. If you’re only cooking one potato in a small pot, for instance, it will go a lot faster than if you’re cooking a batch of 3lbs of potatoes for a cookout. So just keep that in mind with your timing—it could take as little as 15 minutes and as much as 35 minutes or so.
prep ahead: you can prep the french fries by peeling and slicing them, placing them in a pot, and covering with oil ahead of time. Then you can go about preparing the rest of the elements of your dinner, and when you’re about 20-30 minutes out from serving, just place the pot on the stove and turn the heat to high and proceed as normal. Sometimes my potatoes oxidize and turn a little brown when I prep them ahead, but that doesn’t effect the final look or flavor.
how much oil: The amount of oil comes out to about 1.5 cups of oil per potato used, but that’s a rough estimate and will depend on things like the dimensions of the pot you use and how the potatoes lay in the pot. I always have Costco-sized bottles of canola oil on hand, and I don’t worry about wasting the oil because…well, read below. :)
reusing your oil: don’t throw the oil out when you’re done!! Did you know that you could strain your oil and continue to reuse it nearly indefinitely?? Once the oil is cool, set a mesh strainer lined with a paper towel over a bowl. Pour the oil into the strainer and let it drip down in to the bowl below. The oil should now be clear of debris and only slightly darker than when it started. Store in a container (I usually use an empty oil bottle) for up to the 3 months—even longer if you store it in the refrigerator or freezer. If it’s frozen, you just need to let it defrost before using again. You can continue to reuse this oil for frying until it gets very dark (the oil is burned), or until it looks cloudy or smells foul (it’s gone rancid at that point—but this has never happened to me).

Beneath the Crust

Quick & Crispy French Fries