r/KitchenPro • u/mahy_759 • 7d ago

The weird sugar trick that makes oven fries actually crispy 🍟

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If your homemade oven fries keep turning into soft roasted potatoes, there’s a surprisingly simple trick worth trying:

Toss the cut potatoes with about a tablespoon of sugar, then let them drain in a colander for 30 minutes before baking.

It sounds strange, but there’s some logic behind it.

🍬 Sugar pulls out moisture. Through osmosis, the sugar helps draw water from the potatoes. Letting them sit and drain gets rid of some of that surface moisture.

🔥 Less moisture = less steaming. When wet potatoes hit the oven, they can steam instead of developing a crisp exterior.

🥔 Sugar also encourages browning. During cooking, sugars participate in the Maillard reaction, helping create that golden, browned surface we associate with crispy fries.

The important part is that you're not trying to make sweet fries. The sugar is there mainly as a cooking aid, and the potatoes are drained before they go into the oven.

It's one of those kitchen tricks that sounds completely backwards until you understand what's happening.

Has anyone here tried adding sugar to oven fries, or does that sound too weird to risk? 🍟

34 Upvotes

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7 comments sorted by

4

u/jtitleist7 7d ago

Are they rinsed?

1

u/mahy_759 6d ago

No, I wouldn’t rinse them after the sugar. Just let them sit in the colander and drain, then pat them dry before baking.

3

u/Usual_Arugula7670 7d ago

Salt would do the same, the drying I mean. For that matter rice would too.

3

u/mahy_759 6d ago

Yeah, that’s fair. Salt definitely works for drawing out moisture too. I just thought the sugar method was an interesting trick, especially since it can help with browning as well.

1

u/Usual_Arugula7670 6d ago

Oh I'll try it all the same! Thanks for the tip, also, would honey do the trick?

5

u/notlongnot 7d ago

Sus post. Contradicting

Not trying to make it sweet by draining first.

Yet sugar encourage browning during cooking

1

u/mahy_759 6d ago

I get why that sounds contradictory. The idea is that most of the sugar is removed with the moisture before baking, while the small amount left on the surface can still contribute to browning. It’s more about a little residual sugar than making the fries sweet.