Duck Fat Potatoes - Crispiest, Best Roast Potatoes EVER! (2024)

Duck Fat Potatoes are the undisputed king of all roast potatoes! Roasting in duck fat creates an incrediblythick, golden brown crust that’s unbelievably crunchy in a way that you willnever be able toreplicate using oil.

No duck fat? No worries! Make my Truly Crunchy Roast Potatoes instead. After no-fuss roast potatoes? Make these instead!

Duck Fat Potatoes

You’ve heard of them, you might’ve even seen them on the menu of fine dining restaurants.

So – what’s the big deal with Duck Fat Potatoes? Here’s why they’re held as the best roast potatoes in the world!

• Crispiest crustthat’s thick and craggy, with a deep golden brown colour;

• Stays crispyrather than going soggy within seconds of coming out of the oven like “normal” roast potatoes; and

• The best flavour, a pure, clean flavour that doesn’t taste of duck but has a distinctly richer flavour than oil. It’s unique because other animal fats typically have an intense flavour of the animal –like pork fat, which tastes intensely porky.

Plus, it just sounds fancy to say that you’ve made potatoes roasted in duck fat, rather than everyday oil. Right? 🙂

Roasting potatoes in duck fat makes the thickest, craggiest, CRUNCHIEST roast potatoes, in a way that no oil can compare!

In actual fat, cooking with duck fat has been a staple in French cooking since the beginning of time. The French understand that duck fat is like bacon – it just makes everything taste better!

Duck Fat

Here’s what Duck Fat looks like. A decade ago, it was something that was only available in gourmet stores and was fairly pricey (>$10 from memory).

Nowadays, it’s sold in large grocery stores in Australia (Woolies, Coles, Harris Farms) for around $6 a jar full price – you need 1 x 200g/6.5oz jar for this recipe.Duck fat can be reused – just strain out potato bits, then store in the fridge. It keeps for months and months!

I tend to stock up when they’re on sale – they keep in the pantry and have a long shelf life (months, years!). Use it for Duck Confit!

What you need to roast potatoes in Duck Fat

Here’s what you need for Duck Fat Potatoes:

• Duck Fat –see and read above;

• Potatoes – starchy or all rounder potatoes.

  • Australia – Sebago (dirt brushed potatoes, pictured) and Dutch creams are ideal. AlsoDesiree, Golden Delight, Kennebec, King Edwards, Pontiac.

  • US – Russets are best, Yukon Gold also ideal.

  • UK – Maris Piper potatoes

• Semolina – a little secret ingredient for subtle extra crunch, learnt from Nigella! Semolina is a coarse ground yellow wheat that’s used for making (amongst other things) pasta. It’s the perfect size to “meld” into the coating of the potatoes so you can’t taste it separately but you get the benefit of the extra crunch. If you can’t find it, leave it out. There’s really no substitute – even fine ground cornmeal is too coarse (I’ve tried). Don’t worry, it’s like that extra little finishing touch – but I’ve made duck potatoes plenty of times without (and 99% sure most restaurants do too!

• More salt than you expect. Potatoes take a lot of salt!

No duck fat?

Use this recipe for super crunchy roasted potatoes usingoil!

How to roast potatoes in duck fat

There’s a few specific steps to making the crispiest roast potatoes using duck fat. Not difficult, just different to the standard roast potatoes:

1. Heat duck fat until smoking hot –melt and preheat the duck fat in the oven until it’s very hot, so when the potatoes are placed in the hot oil, it sizzles as though it’s frying. This is a key step for crunchy potatoes!Duck fat has a pretty high smoke point of 190°C/375°F which is the temperature to which it can be heated before it starts smoking and all hell breaks loose with your smoke alarms!

2. Large pieces –cut the potatoes into large pieces so they can hold up to the par boiling + roasting time required. Small pieces tend to disintegrate before the crust forms;

3. Par boil – an essential step! This allows us to rough the potatoes up (step 6) and activates the starch on the surface which = crunchier potatoes. Also, par boiling is necessary to ensure the potatoes cook through in the 45 minutes roasting time required for a crunchy surface;

4. Steam off excess water – water is not a friend of crunchy potatoes! So after draining the potatoes well, return to the empty pot on the turned off stove and allow to “steam dry” for a few minutes;

5. Semolina for extra crunch!Terrific secret tip picked up from Nigella – try it once, and you’ll never look back!

6. Rough it up! Shake the pot with the lid on to rough up the surface of the potatoes. Roughed up surface = more surface area = more CRUNCH!

7. Place in HOT oil! The oil should be shimmering and the potatoes should sizzle when they hit the pan;

8. Roast 45 – 50 minutes until deepgolden and SUPER crunchy!

Here’s a nice close look at Duck Fat Potatoes. That crazy crunchy crust!!!

And as for the insides?? Super soft and fluffy!

Stays crispy….and not greasy!

Two more unique characteristics of Duck Fat Potatoes are that:

1. They actuallystay crispy – Ever notice how other promises of crispy roast potatoes might have crispy edges fresh from the oven, but they go soggy within minutes??Not these! Potatoes roasted in duck fat stay crispy for far longer – 20 minutes or so; and

2. Not greasy – despite being roasted in a (thinnish!) layer of duck fat, they don’t come out greasy at all – which I think is captured quite well in the close up photos of the potatoes. They’re actuallyless greasy that potatoes roasted in far less oil the traditional way!

What to serve with Duck Fat Potatoes

The traditional way to serve Duck Fat Potatoes is on the side of roasts. The only thing you need to be mindful of is that you want to serve these potatoes fresh out of the oven to maximise the time they stay crunchy and crispy.

So assuming you’ve only got one oven like me, you need to choose roasts that hold up to resting for the 45 – 50 minutes the potatoes take to roast.My favourites include:

• Slow Roasted Lamb Shoulder

• Slow Roast Leg of Lamband classicRoast Lamb Leg

• Marinated Roast Beef

• Juicy Whole Roasted Turkey

I avoid the following:

• Pork Roast with Crispy Crackling – because the crackling will soften if covered for that length of time;

• Roast Chicken – it’s smaller so optimum maximum rest time is around 20 minutes.

From a practical perspective, Duck Fat Potatoes are ideal to serve on the side ofslow cooker roasts because then you don’t need to deal with the oven battle. Here are my favourites:

• Lemon Garlic SLOW COOKER Roast Chicken

• Slow Cooker Roast Lamb Leg

• Slow Cooker Pork Loin Roast

• Slow Cooker Pot Roast

Hope you enjoy!

– Nagi x

Watch how to make it

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Life of Dozer

Duck Fat Potatoes are too precious for Dozer. How about some potato peel instead?? 😈