Types of Potatoes

It is important to know what type of potatoes you should use when baking and boiling. For example, if you want to add potatoes to soups or stews you should use yellow, blue or red potatoes. These potatoes are low in starch, and this means that, when boiling, they will not fall apart. If you want to bake, then you should use potatoes with a dry texture like the Yukon Gold type. 

Potatoes for baking purposes are high in starch, and when they are done, the texture is very soft. They should not be confused when cooking sweet potatoes which are another different vegetable.

In fact, you can find some of the most common varieties of potatoes, which are among the nightshade vegetables, and the best way to cook them:

Best for: Mashing, steaming, boiling, baking, roasting, frying

Example: Yukon Gold, Yellow Finn

Yellow potatoes are considered "all purpose", which means that you can use them to cook easy potato recipes like mashed or baked potatoes.

Red Potatoes:  

Best for: steaming, boiling, roasting, au gratin, scalloped, salads

Example: Mountain Rose, Red Pontiac, Norland, Klondike Rose, Cranberry Red

 
Russet Potatoes:

Best for: baking, boiling

Example: Russet Burbank (known as Idaho potatoes), German Butterball

Russet potatoes are high in starch. Russet are perfect to cook mashed potatoes and also are good for baking.

White Potatoes:

Best for: mashing, boiling, steaming, au gratin, roasting

Example: White Rose, Cal White

The white potato variety usually are low in starch, which means that it is great for boiling to make a great potato salad.

Fingerling Potatoes:

Best for: baking, and boiling, roasting

Example: French Fingerling, Austrian Crescent, Russian Banana

Also known as "finger potatoes", fingerling potatoes are "finger-shaped" and they are usually low in starch.

Blue Potatoes (also known as purple potatoes)                                  

Best for: steaming, baking, boiling

Example: Russian Blue, All Blue, Purple Peruvian, Purple Majesty

This type is great for all kind of dishes because they are usually "medium" in starch.

- Read about additional uses that raw potatoes have.

- Learn about generating potato electricity.   

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