The Best Broth To Roast Potatoes In For Mind-Melting Flavor
If you're looking to amp up the flavor and crispiness of your roasted potatoes, you'll want to try melted potatoes, which are every bit as delicious as they sound. As you may have surmised from the name, the inside of melted potatoes are luscious, moist, and flavorful, like a stick of warm butter.
The effect is achieved by double-cooking the potatoes. The initial cook involves roasting seasoned potatoes in the oven on high heat (450 degrees Fahrenheit) for that classic crispy exterior, then covering them with broth before they bake again, soaking up the added moisture. The end result is exactly what you would hope for — crispy on the outside, creamy and savory on the inside.
But what kind of broth should you use? A hearty vegetable broth will certainly provide your spuds with nuanced flavor, but we strongly recommend cooking melted potatoes in chicken stock, and for one crucial reason: fat.
Chicken over veggies
Most vegetables contain very little fat as they derive it, as well as sugars and micronutrients, from the soil they grow in. And because flavor binds well to fat molecules, vegetable broth on its own is also often light in the flavor department and best in dishes where it is not the star ingredient.
When it comes to melted potatoes, chicken stock is the way to go. This is because it has just enough fat to transmit the flavor but not so much that the potatoes become greasy. The fat, in addition to the marrow and gelatin from chicken bones, leaves you with a stock that is imbued with a wonderfully complex and meaty flavor. The idea is to get the essence of the bird into the potatoes, just as you would if you roasted them in the tray with the chicken. The fat in chicken broth also makes it easier for the body to digest starchy vegetables. So there really is no trade-off. Using chicken stock will give your potatoes a meatier taste and help them go down easier.