Recipe: Crispy Vegan Roast Potatoes with Garlic & 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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!