40 Perfect Potato Recipes

A little chopped ham, wedges of potatoes and a cream cheese-Gruyere sauce fill this comfort food casserole. Crushed bagel chips make a crunchy topping.

Creamy Potato Casserole

Layering thinly sliced potatoes in a casserole dish means the tops get crisp while the bottoms are meltingly tender.

Shingled Potatoes with Thyme 

The classic mashed potato recipe! Cooking tips: If you leave the skin on the potatoes, mash them with a potato masher rather than an electric mixer (because the skin will get caught in the beaters). If you want to use a potato ricer, wait to add the butter until after you've passed the potatoes through the ricer.

Perfect Mashed Potatoes

This comfort food hotdish offers a new twist on the usual hash brown casserole. Try it for everyday meals as well as potlucks!

Chicken and Corn Hash Brown Bake

Green beans, mushrooms, leeks, potato and handy rotisserie chicken make this creamy casserole a true one-dish meal.

New Potato and Chicken Casserole

Cast iron's heat retention means oil holds a high temperature, so fried foods crisp quickly and evenly. These traditional Jewish potato-onion fritters have tender centers and lacy rims. Top them with sour cream or applesauce.

Potato Latkes

Serve this tangy vinegar-based potato salad with bratwurst and sauerkraut for a meal worthy of a German beer garden.

Bavarian-Style Potato Salad

When mint overflows your pots or takes over your garden, whip up a batch of this fresh pesto. At Illinois' Kinnikinnick Farm, Susan Cleverdon uses the herby sauce to dress roast potatoes, but it's a perfect match for chicken, shrimp or pasta, too.

Roast Potatoes with Mint Pesto

Potato, bacon and cheese--all the flavors you love in a bowl of soup! The American cheese keeps the soup from curdling while it slow cooks. Mashing cooked potatoes a bit gives the soup some body, while the bacon adds a smoky-salty taste.

Cheesy Potato Soup

Tangy blue cheese and salty bacon make traditional mashed potatoes even more indulgent.

Bacon-Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Serve this old-fashioned potluck dish warm.

German Potato Salad

This is the ultimate feel-good dish: two kinds of mashed potatoes with bacon. Cream cheese adds richness; chipotle chile brings a subtle smoky flavor.

Chipotle Smashed Potatoes

Drizzle red-skinned new potatoes with a rich, cheesy sauce to make Glad Tidings Potatoes, from the Latchstring Inn restaurant at western South Dakota's Spearfish Canyon Lodge.

Glad Tidings Potatoes

Our taste panel loved this comfort food from The Echo in Cincinnati. For a crispy crust, cook the potatoes at a higher temperature.

Best Potato Pancakes

This lighter version of traditional potato salad calls for cubed white, red or Yukon gold potatoes mixed with light sour cream and a combination of olive oil, vinegar, garlic and black pepper.

On-the-Light Side Potato Salad

Use either unpeeled sweet potatoes or russet potatoes for these easy grilled potato wedges. Cook wedges in boiling water first to shorten grill time. Serve with Creamy Chive Sauce or Honey Sesame Sauce.

Grilled Sweet Potato Wedges with Dipping Sauces

Quivey's Grove in Madison, Wisconsin, whips up this version of mashed potatoes that matches plenty of dairy richness with garlic, Parmesan, black pepper and green onion.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Mix butter, sour cream and Swiss or Gruyere cheese into mashed Yukon Gold potatoes to create this rich side dish. Our recipe also gives variations for Bacon-Cheddar Twice-Baked Potatoes and Southwestern Twice-Baked Potatoes.

Twice-Baked Potatoes

With just 180 calories per serving, this meal is lighter than many casserole options. But it combines favorite flavors, including ham, eggs, cheese and potatoes. It's perfect for brunch.

Swiss-Potato Breakfast Casserole

The New Glarus Hotel in New Glarus, Wisconsin, serves up a taste of Switzerland with this potato cake -- pure comfort food made from just five ingredients.

Roesti

This colorful one-skillet meal lends itself to improvisation; you could trade the red sweet peppers for green, the spinach for kale, the turkey for ham or the fried eggs for scrambled. Of course, we think the original recipe is pretty darn perfect, with a blend of potatoes and tasty browned onions whose caramelly flavor ties the dish together.

Smoked Turkey and Sweet Potato Hash

An all-time reader favorite, this creamy hotdish is a guaranteed hit at potlucks. (In fact, you may want to make two pans!)

Hash Brown Casserole

Mix pantry ingredients -- canned apple pie filling, canned sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, apricot preserves, orange marmalade and chopped pecans -- for a quick-and-easy side dish with a crunchy nut topping.

Cranberry-Apple Sweet Potatoes

You can assemble the cheesy Herbed Egg-Potato Bake up to two days ahead and refrigerate it.

Herbed Egg-Potato Bake

People love the sounds of food cooking in iron skillets. The irresistible combination of Cajun andouille sausage and bacon bump up the flavor of this home-style breakfast dish. A cast-iron skillet browns it best.

Potato Bacon Skillet

Toasted pecans and melty marshmallows top whipped sweet potatoes in this classic special-occasion side dish.

Sweet Potatoes with Toasted Pecans

This easy-to-make layered cheesy potato dish pairs well with pork chops or ham.

Creamy Scalloped Potatoes

Salty-smoky crumbled bacon tops our cheesy potato soup. "I made this soup and we loved it! Best potato soup ever!" writes one of our website reviewers. "I put carrots in mine; made it even better."

Bacon and Baked Potato Soup

Six-ingredient oven fries bake tender with a crisp exterior, offering a healthier alternative to fried potatoes.

Parmesan Oven Fries

Season this colorful potato, carrot and onion combination with just dill, salt and pepper.

Fire-Roasted Dilled Potato Medley

A mix of red and sweet potatoes gives this classic dish a slight sugary twist. Evaporated milk adds creaminess while fresh thyme brightens.

Simply Scalloped Potatoes

Slice russet potatoes and combine with sweet peppers, onion and fresh parsley for Grilled Potato Packets. Foil packets trap steam that gives potatoes a boiled flavor and texture.

Grilled Potato Packets

Whip up this easy appetizer ahead of time, and store it in your fridge. A few minutes before you want to serve them, broil until hot and crispy.

Nacho Potato Skins

This sweet, radish-studded potato salad recipe was handed down from a Cosmos, Minnesota, grandmother to her twin granddaughters.

Grandma's Potato Salad

Bacon drippings combine with sizzling onions to give this two-potato side dish an irresistible aroma and flavor.

Calico Potatoes

The secret to these potatoes is boiling whole peeled garlic cloves along with the potatoes. Shredded smoked Gouda cheese and finely chopped chopotle pepper in adobe sauce add to the spicy flavor.

Spicy Double-Smoked Mashed Potatoes

We play up an assortment of potatoes--such as baby Dutch yellow, fingerlings, baby purple and round red--in this easy-to-fix recipe.

Roasted Baby Potatoes with Herbs

You'll have more Honey-Thyme Vinaigrette than you need for this fresh-tasting potato salad; keep the extra dressing on hand for another potato or pasta salad. The recipe is from Chicago chef Myk Banas.

Fingerling Potato Salad with Honey-Thyme Vinaigrette

This quick and easy recipe, from a Halstad, Minnesota, farming family, features just five ingredients and can be on the table in 15 minutes.

Easy Potato Soup

Starchy potatoes mash, bake, fry and roast well, while waxy ones work best in casseroles and salads because they hold their shape. Look for smooth, firm spuds without cracks or soft spots. Whether you peel is your choice.

New potatoes (pictured): Young potatoes, any variety, have very thin skins, less starch and a waxy texture. Best for boiling, grilling and roasting.
Russets: Also called Idaho or baking potatoes, these thick-skinned tan spuds are mealy with lots of eyes and a high starch content. Best for baking, grilling, mashing, frying.
Round white potatoes: With light beige skin and white flesh, these medium-starch, waxy-textured potatoes work for boiling and frying.
Long white potatoes: The thin-skinned oval spuds' firm, waxy texture and tiny eyes make them an all-purpose choice.
Round red potatoes: Thin-skinned, these rosy-colored potatoes have a firm, waxy texture. Use in dishes where shape is important.
Yellow potatoes: These thin-skinned beauties come in varieties such as Yukon gold and Finnish yellow. They're smooth-textured and buttery--good for any dish.
Sweet potatoes: These spuds fall into two categories: orange, moist and sweet, or yellow, dry and unsweet. Either kind is good for baking, grilling, roasting and boiling.

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