Garlic Smashed Potatoes

This is a great side dish – it’s super easy to make and it can be prepped ahead of time and baked prior to your guests arriving. Great for a family get-together or if you want a dinner party/weekend dish. But, it’s also a good, fast, end-of-the-week, not-a-lot-of-work, addition to dinner. October 7th was National Potato Day (not to be confused with National Potato Chip Day, which we celebrated back in March)  If you missed it, you can still celebrate your love for potatoes and smash them up!

If you don’t have fingerling potatoes, you can make this with small mini potatoes (which I have done on more than one occasion). The potatoes above are shown with Porchetta Style Pork Tenderloin and Pancetta Brussel Sprouts.

Prep time: 5 minutes Cooking time: to boiling, 20 minutes; to baking, 20 minutes; Serves: 4 people (the recipe is easy to increase or decrease depending on the number of dinner guests)

What you need:

• 12 fingerling potatoes
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• salt, pepper

[ELIN’S TIP:  More people? Fewer people? To make this recipe scalable, my rule of thumb is to use, per guest: 3 fingerling potatoes, 1 clove garlic minced, and 1 tbsp olive oil.]

What you do:

• Preheat oven to 400 F. Note: dinner was made for 3 people.

• Scrub potatoes, place in a pot with salt and cold water to cover, on the stove. Cook on high.
• Cook until potatoes can be just pierced through with a knife, about 20 minutes. Remove from pot and cool slightly.
• In a bowl, combine minced garlic and olive oil.

• Place on baking sheet and with the heel of your hand, or a plate press down to smash the potatoes.
• Spoon garlic olive oil mix over potatoes, sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Place baking sheet in over and cook for approximately 20 minutes until potatoes are brown and crispy.

• If you need to crisp in a hurry, switch your oven to broil and 500 F. Place under the broiler until brown.

Note: for this dinner, I had my sister and niece over, so I adjusted the recipe to cook for 3 people. 

Having a dinner party with more people? Garlic smashed potatoes are a sure-fire fave! I always make more because any leftovers are great heated up the next day.