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Olive oil, paprika, sea salt, and potatoes come together in this recipe to create a potato wedge baked in the oven to crispy perfection.

When I was a junior in college I moved into an off campus apartment and finally had a grown up girl kitchen!  No more being creative with a microwave and eating food out of packages.  Real home cooked meals.  And roommates to share the cooking duties with.  It was fabulous.  It was so fun to sit in the kitchen with my roommates while one of them was cooking and chat and help and just have a good time.

One of our favorite things to cook were potatoes.  They’re fairly cheap and very versatile.  Our vice?  French fries.  Try as we might we could never ever get crispy fries in the oven.  Like, ever.  It was so frustrating!  We probably tried a couple dozen different baked fry recipes and eventually just resigned ourselves to limp, lifeless fries.  

Then last week it kinda hit me.  You ever have one of those lightbulb moments?  The best idea ever!  So I set out to try and make some actual crispy baked potato wedges.  And I won!  I totally won the crunchy oven potato game because I finally found the perfect way to make crispy on the outside, tender on the inside french fries in the oven.  You can thank me after you’ve tried them.

I think the greatest kept secret to perfect fries is soaking them in water and then drying them with paper towels before baking.  This helps them brown and keeps them from sticking to the pan.  Even after resigning myself to flimsy fries sticking to the pan was my number one problem.  Dry the potato?  Problem solved.  Olive oil plus the high temp of the oven helps with that perfect crunchy texture but since every oven is different cooking times will vary.  Cooking time will also change based on the thickness of your wedges.  If you like a thicker wedge they’ll need to cooker longer than the thinner ones.  Obviously 😉

I am so happy I finally found a recipe that gives me crispy and delicious french fries and doesn’t involve a deep fryer!  My mom has never liked any of the other baked fries I’ve made so you can imagine that tossing the word ‘perfect’ around is no small thing.  They has that perfect crunch on the outside and were tender on the inside and the paprika was a great compliment.  But you could also switch it up and use parsley or rosemary or sage.  Dip them in sour cream {I can dip just about anything in sour cream}, ketchup, bar-b-que sauce, or your favorite french fry dipping sauce!

Do you have a recipe you’ve been trying for years with more failures than successes?  Or did you finally figure out the secret to your favorite recipe that’s been giving you trouble?  Let me know in the comments below!