Definitely a cut above the usual roasted potatoes! The unique thing aboutGreek Lemon Potatoes is that they are cooked in a heavily flavoured lemon garlic broth so they suck up all that flavour before roasting to golden perfection. They’re utterly addictive!
Greek Lemon Potatoes
Welcome back to the final instalment of GREEK WEEK!!! We started the week with Greek Chicken marinated in the most incredible yogurt marinade, served up a big pan of homemade Greek Baklava on Wednesday and we’re finishing up the week with the much anticipatedGreek Lemon Potatoes!
We’re serving all these with a side of fresh Greek Salad and Tzatziki for dolloping (in the Greek Chickenrecipe) – and see here for more Greek recipes.
Plate smashing is optional – but loads of garlic in everything is not!
Let’s be clear about one thing up front:
These are not your usual roasted potatoes
Don’t get me wrong. Throw spuds in the oven drizzled with oil, salt and pepper, and I’ll happily munch my way through them.
Make the effort to follow a few extra steps to make the crunchiest roast potatoes you’ve ever had, and it’s like all my Christmases have come at once. Thick, craggy crusts, perfectly seasoned, fluffy insides.
But these roasted Greek Lemon Potatoes….
These are unlike any other roasted potato I’ve ever had because they’re flavouredall the way through. Flavoured with all THIS↓↓↓
How I cut potatoes for this recipe
We wantchunky pieces for this recipe so they hold up to the relatively long cooking time. I cut medium potatoes into 3 pieces, as pictured below, and large potatoes into quarters or thick wedges.
HALF BRAISED, HALF ROASTED
The idea behind Greek Lemon Potatoes is that they are braised in a lemon-garlic flavoured broth so they suck up all that flavour, then you continue roasting them until the liquid evaporates, leaving behind just the oil to roast the potatoes until golden.
The concept sounds easy enough, but actually, it’s quite tricky to do in one pan. I swear, it’s scientifically impossible to roast potatoes until golden without the garlic burning. It’s one or the other – golden garlic or golden potatoes (unless, like I do with my Herb Roasted Potatoes, you add the garlic midway through cooking).
Also,I kept ending up with burnt ridges on the potato from the lemon juice and broth that caramelises on the base of the pan, and a disappointing lack of golden crusts promised by recipes I used.
After two, three, five, seven attempts, I threw every recipe I read out the window (virtually) and settled on aneasier, less riskyway of making Greek Lemon Potatoes so they come out as golden as possible: Braise in one pan to suck up flavour, transfer to a tray to bake until golden, drizzled with the flavoured oil from Pan 1.
How to make Greek Lemon Potatoes (my safer way)
You can skip the transference step if you want. But just be mindful that you’ll need to keep a super close eye on the potatoes and they won’t be as golden as you see in these photos, you’ll likely end up with thin dark burnt ridges and the garlic with burn (gee, I’m really making this sound appetising! 😂)
In the interest of total transparency …
Because I hate recipes that lie, I want to be 100% clear about expectations: these are not the crispiest roast potatoes in the world. I truly think it’s scientifically impossible to get seriously crispy roast potatoes once they’ve been submerged in all that lemon and broth (believe me, I tried my heart out!).
So if seriously crunchy potatoes is what you are after – and I’m talkingseriously thick crunchy crustand theystay crisp for ages – use this recipe: Duck Fat Potatoes or Truly Crunchy Roast Potatoes.
But these Greek Lemon Potatoes do have nice crispy edges and some crispy surfaces (see video and photos) and in any case, you won’t miss major crunch factor because these have so much more flavour than any other roasted potato.
It was actually scary how much of these I was able to consume in one sitting. I just couldn’t stop – they are so darn good!! – Nagi x
More spud-tacular recipes
Truly Crunchy Roast Potatoes
Crispy Smashed Potatoes
Parmesan-crusted Potatoes
Mini Potato Gratin Stacks
Twice-baked Stuffed Jacket Potatoes
Potato Dauphinoise
Potato Rosti
Watch how to make it
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Greek Lemon Potatoes
Author: Nagi
Prep: 10 minutes mins
Cook: 1 hour hr 10 minutes mins
Total: 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins
Sides
Greek
4.97 from 224 votes
Servings5
Tap or hover to scale
Recipe video above. The idea behind this recipe is that the potatoes suck up the amazing lemon-garlic-oregano flavoured broth, then roasted until golden crispy edges. These won't go super crunchy because of the way they're cooked – but you won't miss the crunch because they have flavour unlike any other ordinary roasted potato! If crunch is what you're after, try these recipes: Duck Fat Potatoes, or Truly Crunchy Roast Potatoes.
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg / 2.5lb potatoes (Aus: Desiree, US: Yukon Gold, UK: Maris Piper) (Note 1)
- 1 1/2 cups chicken stock/broth , low sodium (Note 2)
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup lemon juice
- 5 garlic cloves , finely grated using microplane (Note 3)
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp salt (Note 4)
Garnish (optional)
- Lemon wedges, fresh oregano leaves
Instructions
Preheat oven to 200°C/390°F (180°Cfan).
Cut potatoes: Peel potatoes and cut large ones into thick wedges – about 3cm / 1.2" thick – and medium ones into 3 (see photo in post).
Coat potatoes: Place potatoes in a roasting pan with all the other ingredients. Toss well.
Roast 45 minutes: Roast for 20 minutes. Turn potatoes, roast for a further 25 to 30 minutes until the liquid is mostly absorbed by potatoes/evaporated and you're left with mainly oil in the pan.
To crisp the potatoes (optional): Transfer potatoes to a separate tray. (Note 3) Tilt the original roasting pan and scoop off as much of the oil as you can (some juices is ok), then drizzle over the potatoes.
Roast 35 minutes: Transfer potatoes to oven and roast for 35 – 40 minutes, turning once or twice, until potatoes are golden and a bit crispy on the edges.
Heat pan juices: Return pan #1 with the garlic juices to the oven for the last 5 – 10 minutes or so to reduce down and make the garlic golden. (Optional, Note 4)
Plate up: Transfer potatoes to serving platter. Drizzle over the reduced garlic pan juices (or toss potatoes in the pan). Serve, garnished with lemon wedges and oregano if desired.
Recipe Notes:
1. Potatoes – use starchy, not waxy potatoes, as they absorb flavour better.
Australia: Sebago potatoes (the common dirt brushed potatoes) are a good alternative. They are marginally less crispy, but almost nearly as good!
2. Braising liquid – Can use water + 2 stock cubes or 2 tsp powder instead, but liquid stock is tastier. Can use veg stock instead of chicken.
3. Garlic – it’s best to use a microplane to finely grate the garlic so it dissolves in the stock so you don’t end up with burnt little garlic bits at the end.This is a recipe improvement added in March 2021.
4. Salt – I know it sounds like a lot of salt but potatoes need it!
5.You can skip this step to transfer the potatoes to a separate tray but you’ll either have to make do with non-crispy-not-really-even-golden potatoes OR golden potatoes with burnt edges and tons of burnt garlic everywhere. You choose…
If you’re ok with less colour, you can leave them in the same panand keep roasting for another 20 minutes, but don’t let them go too far such that the garlic burns.
I like to drizzle the residual garlic pan juices over the potatoes, rather than tossing them, just to preserve the crispy edges. You could in fact just use pan juices without reducing, up to you. This step is also optional.
6. Nutrition per serving, slightly over because you actually lose a lot of oil in the pan with the cooking method I use to make them extra crispy.
Nutrition Information:
Calories: 349cal (17%)Carbohydrates: 32g (11%)Protein: 7g (14%)Fat: 22g (34%)Saturated Fat: 3g (19%)Sodium: 976mg (42%)Potassium: 1079mg (31%)Fiber: 6g (25%)Vitamin C: 34mg (41%)Calcium: 80mg (8%)Iron: 8.1mg (45%)
Keywords: Greek Lemon Potatoes, Greek Potatoes
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