Easy Oil-Free French Fries on the Stovetop – No Baking

Oil-free French Fries can sound like some kind of voodoo, or cold-fusion, when you say it out loud—how are you supposed to fry fries without any oil? Let me show you how to make amazing fries without oil or baking that are super soft on the inside and golden and crispy on the outside.

Say hello to healthier French Fries. A simple trick or two when cooking also lowers the glycemic index and glycemic load of these fries making them a healthier choice than any other fry you’ve had before.

Recipe Overview – Oil-Free French Fries

Short Recipe Video – Easy Oil-Free French Fries

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The Menu for Oil-Free French Fries

Directions at a Glance for Easy Oil-Free French Fries on the Stovetop

1. Slice or chip your potatoes into French fries, as thick or as thin as you like.
2. Boil, steam, or microwave your potatoes until they are fork tender.
3. In a seasoned steel or cast iron pot or pan, dry-fry (dry-saute) your fries until they are golden, rotating every 5-7 minutes or so. Serve with home made ketchup.

Aren’t Potatoes Bad For You?

Potatoes are such a confusing health subject because although they are a vegetable, they are also a staple of unhealthy eating. Afterall, can you imagine junk food without chips (crisps) or fast food without fries? Most studies don’t just test plain old potatoes with nothing on them, because that’s not how most people in North America eat potatoes.

Why It’s Hard To Test Potatoes

Potatoes are a hard thing to test in a lab—for one they don’t fit in a pill. Most of the studies that have been done on potatoes are done with people eating an American diet of French fries that are covered in oil and cooked at extremely high temperatures, or they have them mashed or baked with butter, cheese, sour cream, bacon, etc. The other way that people usually eat potatoes is that they have them roasted covered with oil to go with a bunch of meat.

So it’s hard to look at only the potatoes and to ignore everything else that people add to their potatoes. Recent studies that try to account for all these confounding factors find that regular “potato consumption was not associated with risk of mortality caused by cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, or diabetes.” But the potatoes were still causing jumps in the glycemic index.

What About The Glycemic Index of Potatoes?

I’ve mentioned before in the Pierogies recipe or the 6 Food Hacks mini-article that the GI of starches, like potatoes, rice, noodles, etc. can easily reduced by simply cooking and reheating starches as tested in many different studies and showed up to 40% reductions in GI in some studies, taking potatoes from a high to low GI food.

Many studies say that eating potatoes have a high GI (Glycemic Index) which increases the “risk of T2D,” and that by even cooking potatoes makes the “starch become more digestible, which can result in raised blood sugar levels.”

So by blanching our fries after boiling them we will increase the resistant starches. Also eating high GI foods with vinegar has shown it can reduce “blood glucose and insulin,” and increase satiety, making you feel full longer in a study done with white bread and vinegar (about 3 tbsp vinegar).

If you don’t want to boil your potatoes then feel free to steam or even microwave them first.

Anything But White Potatoes

Go with yellow, Yukon Gold, or anything but white potatoes since this study found “precooking had no effect on boiled white potatoes,” but that otherwise they advised to when eating potatoes to “consume them cold or reheated.”

I suggest yellow since they are even more common that white potatoes in North America and often cheaper. Purple potatoes or purple sweet potatoes are the most health for you and if you can find them I highly suggest them for your next potato everything!

Have ideas for recipes or feedback? Let me know in the comments or connect with me on substack or Instagram!

One Pot or One Pan?

If you want to use a single pot/pan then make sure it is deep enough to boil and fully submerge the fries in the water.

I suggest a seasoned Saute Pan, sauce pan, or even a seasoned soup pot. You can season the pot/pan before or after boiling.

How To Season Steel Cookware

Why you should not use non-stick cookware

⭐The Full Oil-Free French Fries Stovetop Recipe⭐

Oil-Free French Fries

Chef Rob

No oil no baking. Stovetop oil-free French Fries

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 25 minutes mins

Course Appetizer, Comfort Food, Junk Food, Lunch, Side Dish, Snack

Cuisine American, Belgium, French

Servings 1 people

Equipment

• 1 Pot (seasoned: How-to Season Steel Cookware)

Ingredients

  

• 1 ea potato anything but white potatoes! (Yellow, Yukon Gold, Purple, Sweet Potato etc.)
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Instructions

 

• Slice your potato into fries (batons/sticks) about 1cm (1/3 inch) thick. Add them to a pot of rapidly boiling water with vinegar and cook for about 3-7 minutes until they are fork tender.

  Note: You can also steam or microwave the fries instead if you want to retain more nutrients.
  
• Strain the boiled potatoes and blanch them by either running them under cold water until they cool down, or by dunking them into an ice bath then strain all the water out.

  Add the dried potatoes to your seasoned pot or pan and cook for 5-7 minutes until crispy on the bottom.
  
• Flip the fries with a spatula, cook for 5 minutes or more. Then flip again and repeat for all remaining sides until all sides have a golden crispy crust.

  Serve with a side of home made healthy ketchup or other dips & sauces you can find on substack.

  Note: You can add extra vinegar to the ketchup or even dip them in vinegar (think malt vinegar if you're not-gluten free) to lower glycemic load even more.
  

Notes

• I’m a fan of mojo/wedge fries because they only have 2-3 sides so there is less flipping

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🧂If you absolutely must add salt, sugar, or fat/oil then try to add them to taste, to the top of the food, so you use less, and add in small amounts and only after tasting before adding any more. The same goes for other “less healthy” additions, but the idea should be to try to limit and eventually remove adding them, over time, when you are ready. (Use a finer ground salt as it will taste saltier than a coarse/rock salt or sugar.)

After a few weeks of not eating a SAD diet your tastebuds reset and you’ll notice and be surprised by the natural sugars and sodium in foods, check out the great article, and subscribe to, Michael Corthell on Substack for more about the SAD diet.

💡Protips💡

Perfect Potatoes

• Avoid white potatoes since they don’t seem to work very well with reheating to lower the glycemic index. Anything darker than white will work, yellow, yukon gold, russet, etc.

Perfect Fries

To make fries that are crispy but still soft on the inside we will use a few simple tricks.

Also, feel free to cut your fries horizontally instead of vertically if you like shorter fries. I like wedge fries because they are only 3-sided.

Water & Vinegar

• The boiling makes the fries nice and tender on the inside and the vinegar keeps the outsides firm.
• Boil the potatoes/fries until they are just tender, not longer since we will be cooking them more after we cool them down first.
• When sauteing the fries try covering them for the first few minutes with a steam vent lid to make them even softer inside

Seasoning The Pot or Pan

• You can season the pot or pan before boiling, and the boiling should not effect the seasoning in any way, even with the vinegar.
• Use medium-high to high heat to make sure your fries are crispy. Not too high, burn food contains carcinogens so avoid eating burnt food as often as is possible.
• Use a spatula to flip the fries if they don’t release on their own from a firm shake of the pot or pan.

Boil Steam Zap or Bake?

• You can also steam, microwave, or even bake them. Then just make sure to cool them down to room temperature or colder either by blanching or by placing them in the refrigerator/freezer until they cool down.
• Baking is a healthier option only if they are first cooled and then recooked to increase the amount of resistant starch, lowering the GI.
• You do need to cook them twice to get them crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, unless you’re baking them but not cooking them twice is not recommended due to glycemic index spikes.

Substitutes for Potatoes

Any root vegetable works great for fries. Here are some options to try

• Sweet potatoes, purple potatoes, carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, and any color of potato or sweet potato you can find.

As A Meal

Try to make sure these healthier fries are part of a balanced and healthy meal. Fries are a side dish, not the main attraction, and potatos should be limited until more science has been done on plain potatoes (not ones smothered in oil, cheese, or meat) that have been reheated to reduce the glycemic index effects of potatoes.

Nutrition Facts Table – Easy Oil-Free French Fries

The Science – Sources

Please tell me how it turned out! Did you: try it, like it, hate it, change it, or do something else unexpected???

If I’ve made any mistakes, or something doesn’t make sense, or if you want more/less details, please let me know in the comments.

Stay healthy and nourished! Happy cooking!

Chef Robert Leigh.

Easy Oil-Free French Fries on the Stovetop – No Baking