Country Potatoes

Easy Skillet Country Potatoes, fried up in a cast iron pan or skillet, are such a simple breakfast side dish to make. Often referred to as “home fries” country potatoes have super tender centers and crispy skins. These breakfast potatoes are also diced super small and cook fast, like hash browns, and are not a time intensive recipe for such a delicious reward.

As stated, home fries are usually considered a breakfast side dish (and are savory next to a sweet recipe counterpart like French toast casserole) but they also go great as a side dish when serving full breakfast smorgasbord like sausage hash brown casserole , sheet pan eggs and oven fried bacon.

—–> If you prefer an oven roasted red potato, which is a no splatter or skillet alternative, head over to that recipe.

Perfect Skillet Breakfast Potatoes

What’s not to love about fried potatoes as a side dish! These crispy breakfast potatoes take about 25-30 minutes to make from prep to pouring on the plate and are also a great dish for campfire and outdoor recipes. Delicious pan fried herb soaked potatoes, this recipe is incredibly easy to alter with a change of seasonings and spices to fit a palette.

Once you get the hang of how to cook up perfectly crispy potatoes from scratch, adding fresh herbs is a snap.

Scroll to the bottom for a printable version of this post, including all measurements and instructions, so you can follow along in your kitchen without being on your phone. 

• POTATOES: russet potatoes, mini white potatoes or red potatoes all work fine. Russet potatoes are the example used in this recipe. Skins are kept on.
• COOKING OIL: vegetable oil is preferred, but olive oil or canola oil will work fine if on hand
• SEASONINGS: fresh minced garlic, salt, black pepper
• FRESH HERBS: fresh parsley is great for adding color but this recipe is fairly versatile. If you want a more unique breakfast potato with additional flavor, fresh thyme or fresh rosemary offer a fragrant and delicious take as well.
• TOPPINGS: shredded cheese (optional)

RELATED RECIPES: Amish Breakfast Casserole, Sausage Hash Brown Casserole, Biscuits and Gravy Casserole, Cinnamon Apple Breakfast Bake, Strawberry French Toast Casserole, Cracker Barrel Hash Brown Casserole, Ham Hash browns 

Can Vegetables be added to Skillet Potatoes?

The short answer is yes but the long answer is the best way is in an additional skillet. Many people love to add onions, green bell peppers or even bacon to a home fries recipe, but due to the high heat of the oven, I recommend that you skillet fry those together and then combine at the end. The green bell peppers would likely over bake and possibly burn in the 20 minutes on 450.

Its super easy to combine cut up bacon, diced onions, chopped peppers to a skillet and fry while the potatoes are in the oven. The bacon grease should easily provide enough oil to really give amazing flavor to those veggies. Once breakfast potatoes are done, simply pour skillet vegetables onto sheet pan and use a spatula to toss before serving.

How to make Crispy Country Potatoes

Before getting started on any recipe that contains skin on potatoes, its important to wash and scrub potatoes. Potatoes come from the ground and usually contain at least a small amount of grit. I can assure you that it is not tasty in this dish.

Starting with clean potatoes, slice and then dice potatoes into 1/2″ pieces and place into a skillet. If you cut the pieces too large, they will not cook in the this time period.

Try to make pieces as even as possible in sizing so all potatoes finish at the same time. This helps prevent some potatoes being underdone and some potatoes being over done.

Add cooking oil, fresh minced garlic or garlic powder, salt and black pepper and use a spatula to mix well to evenly coat all sides of prepared potatoes.

Heat up diced potatoes on medium heat, keeping large skillet covered for the first 10 minutes so they begin to cook through the middle. 

Flip at 6 minutes (using a metal spatula so it slides easily under the potato) so they are really fried on the bottoms.

Remove skillet lid and continue to cook uncovered potatoes until potatoes are fork tender and skins are left crispy and golden brown, which typically takes about 20 minutes on the stove.

It should be unlikely that you need to drain potatoes, but if necessary, use a paper towel to soak up any excess grease.

Once done serve immediately.

These potatoes go great with other breakfast dishes like this Ninja Foodi breakfast casserole or blueberry breakfast cake.

How to Prevent Potatoes from Sticking

The truth is any time you fry with oil on a skillet, potato sticking happens.

The best way to prevent too much sticking is not to get trigger happy on flipping the potatoes. My best results have come to let them cook for 5-6 minutes (don’t let them burn!) and then flipping to get the other side with a METAL spatula. 

If you try to flip too soon, they are stick or don’t get that nice crispy skin.

Storing Left Over Country Potatoes

There is something that dies out for me when crispy fried potatoes go into the fridge. This is one of those meals I prefer to eat right then, hot off the stove. That being said, if there are left over potatoes, they can be stored about 3-4 days in the fridge.

To bring back to life, throw a bit of oil and heat up on the skillet, then dump in and warm potatoes back up. I do not recommend the microwave. If there is access to the air fryer, these potatoes can likely be set on 390 and air fried back to original taste and texture.

How many carbs are in Skillet Potatoes?

This always depends on how many you eat right?? I plugged my recipe right into carb manager for an estimation and here is the carb load for this serving size. As suspected, eating fried potatoes it not advisable if you are on a low carb, no carb, or keto diet.

More Potato Side Dish Recipes

Need more potato side dish recipe options? 

• Scalloped Potatoes and Ham
• Funeral Potatoes
• Steakhouse Mashed Potatoes
• Roasted Potatoes (and asparagus)
• Boiled Red Potatoes
• Hasselback Sweet Potatoes
• Potato Casserole