Air Fryer Red Potatoes

This is seriously the best recipe for red potatoes in the air fryer. They get beautifully browned outside, soft inside, and they have tons of flavor.

When I get my hands on new baby potatoes, I make these air fryer baby potatoes, or this recipe from my Ukrainian Baba for new potatoes with dill.

But if I have regular store-bought red potatoes, the ones that are about 2 inches in diameter, then my go-to is the below recipe for red potatoes in the air fryer. You can use other kinds of potatoes if you’d like. You just want to use the same approximate weight and cut them into 2 inch by 1 inch wedges or cubes. That will be quartered into little wedges for the standard red potatoes.

Amount Of Potatoes For Air Fryer

My recipe calls for 8-10 small red potatoes that are quartered. This will be about 1.5 to 2 pounds of potatoes and works well in my air fryer in a single layer without crowding.

Note that you can use less, for sure, just use less of the other ingredients also. If you want use more, you absolutely can. I just find that the potatoes turn out best when they are forming a single, mostly-not-overlapping, layer in the bottom of the air fryer. If I’m doing more though because we’re really hungry or there are extra people, they end up taking a bit longer, and they don’t always get as crispy. They’re still tasty though!

Seasonings For Red Potatoes

For my air fryer potatoes recipe, I decided to use salt, fresh rosemary, and fresh garlic. Depending on what you’re serving them with, you might want to add extra spices like cayenne pepper or onion powder. Or use your favorite blend, like Italian seasoning or Cajun seasoning mix.

Salt: I found half a teaspoon not enough and 1 teaspoon too much, so 3/4 teaspoon is perfect for this amount of potatoes. But I preferred it with 1/2 teaspoon used at the beginning and then that little bit, a couple pinches to 1/4 teaspoon added at the end to be the best result. Similar to how restaurants season their fries right before serving them as they come out of the fryer, this was the tastiest method.

Rosemary: The chopped fresh rosemary is really lovely on here and compliments the flavor of the potatoes. Dried rosemary unfortunately isn’t a great substitute here. It never plumps up and ends up dry and scratchy. So, if you have fresh rosemary, use it. If not, just skip it. If you have fresh thyme or fresh oregano, those will work instead. But softer herbs like parsley or basil wilt too much. A sprinkle of chopped fresh chives just before serving works really well!

If you’d really like to use a dried herb instead of fresh, dried oregano or dried basil works better than rosemary or thyme because it’s softer. Use 1/2 teaspoon of either one and add it when you add the garlic.

Garlic: I’ve used fresh garlic for this recipe instead of garlic powder. I found that the garlic powder burnt a bit in the air fryer. It’s important to slice the garlic cloves rather than to mince or chop it for the air fryer. The reason is that small bits of garlic fall between the potatoes and then through the grates of the air fryer basket. By doing slices, the garlic has more surface area to balance on the potatoes, and if it does fall down, it doesn’t fall all the way through the grates. 

When slicing the garlic, holding the clove so that the widest part faces your knife will give you the widest slices, which are the least likely to fall down. Note that if you do mince the garlic or if your slices are so small that they fall through, you can always remove the basket and scoop the garlic from underneath onto the potatoes before serving.

Very Important: Rinse the Potatoes

What we’re trying to do here is get nicely browned potatoes in the air fryer. And in less time than it takes to cook them in the oven (compare with the time it takes to make these Classic Oven-Roasted Potatoes and these Red Potatoes with Parmesan Cheese recipe.

Starting by rinsing the potatoes gets the starch off of the outside which helps them brown. Cut them into quarters first so that the inner starchy parts are exposed. Then put them into big pot or bowl. Fill it full with cool tap water. Swish the potatoes around. Spill out the water.

And then do it again. And again! You want to rinse those potatoes THREE TIMES to really get all that starch off.

Some people say to soak the potatoes in water for awhile to remove more of the starch. I actually tried this and didn’t find that it made a difference. If the potatoes are rinsed well three times, they end up just as good as if you soak them. Especially if you dry them off well after, which is the next step.

Also Very Important: Dry the Potatoes

After you have triple-rinsed the potatoes, lay out a pile of 8-10 paper towels or a clean lint-free kitchen towel. Topple those damp potatoes onto there and then move them around or wrap them up and pat them to really get all of the water off of them.

Why do this? You see, we’re about to add oil. And you know oil and water don’t mix. If you add oil to watery potatoes, it kind of slides off. Then it doesn’t have contact with the potatoes and can’t help them to brown as well. So, dry those potatoes off well and then get them into a dry bowl. As in, don’t put them back into the damp bowl you used to rinse them, or at least don’t do that without drying off the inside of the bowl first.

And you’re going to want to add the oil to those potatoes immediately. The potatoes have water inside of them. If you leave them for a bit, the water starts to come out and then you have that same oil-not-sticking problem. It’s not something you can see with your eyes, but it happens. So as soon as you dry off the potatoes, put them in a dry bowl and toss them with the oil.

Add the salt after you’ve tossed the potatoes in oil. It’s a little detail but we don’t want anything getting between the oil and the potato, you know?

Air Fryer Temperature and Time for Crispy Red Potatoes

The rinsed and dried red potatoes get tossed with oil and then salt and then they immediately go into the air fryer at 400°F. You don’t have to pre-heat the air fryer first.

Let them cook for 12 minutes at 400F untouched. Leaving the air fryer alone and not tossing the potatoes frequently lets the heat really intensify in there, which also aids in the browning. That browning is our goal with all the other steps, so we don’t want to mess with it now.

Then you can give them a toss and continue cooking until fork-tender, about an additional 6-8 minutes. You may have noticed that so far only oil and salt have been added to the potatoes. That’s because it’s hot in the air fryer and our other flavor ingredients will burn. So then, when do you add those other things?

Add Garlic And Herbs At The End

You might remember that when I was developing this fried potato and onion recipe, the onions would burn before the potatoes crisped up. I had the same issues in today’s recipe, where the garlic and/or rosemary gets dark and bitter if you put it in right at the beginning.

Adding them just at the end for just a little while gets the flavor onto the potatoes and cooks it a bit, without making it bitter. Problem solved!

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