These deliciously crispy Vegan Roast Potatoes are infused with garlic and rosemary – perfect roasties ready to be slathered in gravy.
Here’s the second in the recipe series for the easy, prep-ahead Veggie & Vegan Christmas Dinner. Today, we’re looking at arguably the most important part of any festive feast, perfectly crispy vegan roast potatoes.
There’s nothing fancy or high-tech going on here, just a simple but failsafe method for crispy roast potatoes, infused with traditional flavours of garlic and rosemary.
What you need for your Vegan Roast Potatoes
Potatoes obviously! Go for a floury variety for the best ‘fluffy on the inside, crispy on the outside’ experience – something like a King Edward, Desirée or Maris Piper would be perfect.
Garlic Don’t be alarmed by 6 cloves between 4 servings… the garlic cloves roast in their skins so you get a gentle garlicky flavour infusing the oil they are cooked in, rather than chunks of garlic on your potatoes.
If you’re making a vegan gravy to serve with your meal, these roasted garlic cloves are a beautifully sweet addition. Just squeeze out the soft flesh from the skins into your gravy as it cooks.
Oil I’ve suggested rapeseed or olive oil – I usually go for rapeseed as it is almost flavourless, but use whatever oil you prefer. I don’t like coconut as I find the taste quite strong and not something I want flavouring roast potatoes, but I know a lot of people use nothing else for cooking so it’s up to you!
Perfect Roast Potatoes: Top Tips
A few tips I’ve read about recently to make your perfect roasties even better:
- Keep your potato peelings, tie them into a square of muslin and add to the saucepan whilst you are par-boiling the potatoes. This really adds to the flavour.
- Heat the oil in the oven before adding the potatoes. This means that the potatoes start to form a crisp crust as soon as they hit the pan, and will make all the difference to beautifully crispy roasties.
- Once you have par-boiled the potatoes, make sure they are really thoroughly dry before you roast them. I do this by leaving them for a while in their sieve or colander whilst the oven heats up, but if you’re in a rush you can tip them into a clean tea towel to soak up any excess moisture. This also guarantees a really golden and crisp potatoes.
Variations on your perfect Roasties
Sometimes I like to play around with the flavours and textures of roast potatoes depending on what I’m serving them with. How about:
- Polenta Toss your par-boiled potatoes in polenta before putting them in the hot oil – this takes them to a whole new level of crispiness
- Vegan parmesan When they are finished roasting and completely soft inside, grate over some vegan parmesan (my go-to is Violife’s Prosociano, available in most supermarkets), toss to coat all the potatoes, then return to the oven for a few more minutes until it crisps up.
- Paprika gives a lovely smoky spice to roasties – toss a few teaspoons through the par-boiled potatoes just before putting them into the oil.
- Lemon Grate the zest of 1 lemon over the potatoes just 5 mintues before they have finished cooking. Delicious!
Prepare Ahead: Vegan Roast Potatoes
To prepare ahead, you can do the peeling and par-boiling the day before, and keep the potatoes in an airtight container in the fridge overnight.
You could even par-boil then freeze the potatoes, then fully defrost before roasting.
Vegan in 15 Cookbook
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Crispy Vegan Roast Potatoes with Garlic & Rosemary
Ingredients
- 800 g floury potatoes (see advice above)
- 3 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
- 6 garlic cloves
- 4 stalks rosemary
Instructions
- Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters.
- Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, then add the potatoes and cook for 8 minutes to par-boil them. Drain, then let the potatoes sit in a colander or sieve over the saucepan for a while until they have completely dried and are fairly cool. If you don’t have time to wait, tip them into a clean tea towel to soak up any excess moisture – this will guarantee a really crispy skin.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F / Gas Mark 4. Put the olive oil into a roasting tin along with the garlic and rosemary stalks, and place in the oven whilst it is heating up. This will heat the oil and help the garlic and rosemary to infuse their flavours into the oil.
- When the oven is hot enough, remove the roasting tin and carefully place the potatoes into it. Season generously with salt and black pepper, then stir well until all the potatoes are fully coated in hot oil.
- Roast the potatoes for 35-45 minutes, turning occasionally, until they are golden brown and crispy, and cooked through to the centre, (test some of the largest ones with a sharp knife). Discard the garlic cloves and rosemary, then serve.
Nutrition
You might also enjoy my posts:
- 34 Vegetarian Sunday Lunch Recipes you need to know about
- 33 Vegan Sunday Lunch Recipes you need to know about
Or for a different style of potatoes to go with your Sunday roast, how about trying these recipes from blogging friends:
- Chris’ Vegan Potato Gratin from Thinly Spread
- Stacey’s Vegan Scalloped Potatoes Florentine from Stacey Homemaker
Helen @ family-friends-food.com says
I love a crispy golden roastie and these look perfect! Great flavours too.
Katherine says
Spud perfection! These look incredible and those are perfect herbs for potatoes. Yum!
David says
Love the nicely browned color! Creative idea for using the potato peels. I am certainly not deterred by the amount of garlic in the recipe — can’t get enough garlic as far as I am concerned!
Sue says
Yum! Nothing can beat a perfectly roasted potato!
Nart at Cooking with Nart says
Crispy roast potatoes are one of my favorite side dishes. Love that you use rosemary and garlic in your version – they must give the potatoes so much flavor!
Chris Mosler says
Oh goodness, yes please! Nothing beats a good roast potato – I always save one bite to last just to get every last bit of enjoyment out of them!