The potato has fed civilizations for centuries, survived every diet trend thrown at it, and still manages to sit on nearly every table on the planet. Only rice and wheat are consumed in larger quantities globally, which says a lot about how deeply the humble spud is woven into human eating. Yet few foods are as misunderstood.
Potatoes have gotten a bad rap in dietary circles, with low-carb fads putting some people off eating them altogether – though they’re actually pretty healthy when cooked the right way. The real story isn’t about the potato itself. It’s about what you do to it before it reaches the plate.
#1 – Steaming (The Clear Winner)
Steaming is considered the next-healthiest way to cook a potato after baking or microwaving, because it causes less nutrient loss than boiling. The reason comes down to contact: steam heats the potato through vapor rather than submerging it in water, so the vitamins don’t simply dissolve and vanish.
Health authorities recommend gentle cooking methods like steaming, boiling, and pressure-cooking potatoes, as no significant amounts of acrylamide are produced in these ways. That matters more than many people realize. Acrylamide is typically found in plant-based foods cooked with high heat such as frying, roasting, and baking – not in raw plant-based foods or those cooked by steaming or boiling.
#2 – Microwaving (Surprisingly Excellent)
Microwaving might seem like a shortcut, but it’s actually one of the most efficient ways to retain nutrients in potatoes. The short cooking time and minimal use of water help preserve water-soluble vitamins better than boiling, and it requires no added fat. That’s a combination that’s hard to beat on a busy weeknight.
Microwaving potatoes is one of the most nutritious and fastest ways to prepare them, and it preserves many of the nutrients lost through other cooking methods. Critically, boiling potatoes and microwaving whole potatoes with the skin on to make “microwaved baked potatoes” does not produce acrylamide, based on FDA studies. Keep the skin on for best results.
#3 – Baking (Skin-On, No Heavy Toppings)
Baking is one of the best ways to cook potatoes while preserving natural nutrients. Since there’s no added water or oil involved, vitamins and minerals remain mostly intact, especially if you leave the skin on. A plain baked potato is genuinely one of the most complete single-ingredient meals you can make.
A medium baked potato with the skin has just 160 calories and serves up nearly a quarter of your daily vitamin C. You also get a healthy dose of antioxidants called chlorogenic acids, which help control inflammation. The trap, as nutritionists often point out, is the toppings. Typical toppings like sour cream, cheese, or butter can significantly change the nutrition profile of your potato, adding additional fat, calories, and sodium.
#4 – Boiling with Skin On (Good, with Caveats)
Boiling is one of the most common ways to cook potatoes, especially for mashed dishes or salads, but it can cause some water-soluble nutrients like vitamin C and certain B vitamins to leach into the water. The difference between peeling before and after boiling is larger than most people expect.
As much as roughly four-fifths of a potato’s vitamin C may go down the drain if you boil it peeled. Water-soluble vitamins and minerals such as B vitamins, vitamin C, and potassium leach out into cooking water when boiled, but boiling potatoes with their skins on greatly reduces these nutrient losses. There’s also a bonus worth knowing: refrigerating cooked potatoes transforms their carbs into resistant starch, which acts like fiber in the body and can lower blood sugar levels while feeding healthy bacteria in the large intestine.
#5 – Roasting with Olive Oil (Solid Middle Ground)
Roasting is similar to baking, though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Typically, baked potatoes are cooked whole, whereas roasted potatoes are frequently chopped and tossed with oil and seasonings. That extra oil and the higher surface-to-volume ratio is what separates roasting nutritionally from plain baking.
Comparing frying, roasting, and baking potatoes, frying causes the highest acrylamide formation. Roasting potato pieces causes less acrylamide formation, followed by baking whole potatoes. Using olive oil for roasting, rather than refined seed oils, keeps the fat profile reasonable. The key is keeping the color golden rather than dark brown, since deeper browning increases acrylamide.
#6 – Cooled and Reheated (The Resistant Starch Trick)
This one doesn’t get nearly enough attention. Cooking a potato and then cooling it before eating it changes its chemistry in a meaningful way. Dietitians highlight a lesser-known nutrition trick: cooling cooked potatoes before reheating and eating them to form resistant starch, which reduces their impact on blood sugar.
Refrigerating cooked potatoes transforms their carbs into resistant starch, which acts like fiber in the body, helps feed healthy bacteria in the large intestine, and lowers blood sugar levels. Reheating reduces resistant starch but doesn’t destroy it. This applies to any cooking method – boiled, baked, roasted – as long as the potato is properly cooled first. It’s a simple step with a measurable payoff.
#7 – Air Frying (A Real Improvement, Not a Free Pass)
Air frying potatoes achieves roughly 80% less oil absorption compared to traditional deep frying, which is a meaningful difference in daily caloric intake. Cooking method dramatically impacts fat content: air-fried potatoes contain roughly 5 to 7 grams of fat and around 140 calories, compared to deep-fried versions at 14 to 16 grams of fat and around 280 calories.
The picture is more complicated when it comes to acrylamide. A 2024 study found that air-fried potatoes contained slightly more acrylamide than deep-fried or oven-fried potatoes, though pre-soaking the potatoes resulted in less acrylamide across all three cooking methods. A 2024 trial also confirmed that air-fried batches sometimes contained slightly more acrylamide especially when cooked for longer times to a deep brown color – so more air frying is not always better. Cook to a light golden color, not dark brown.
#8 – Pan Frying / Sautéing (Depends Heavily on the Oil)
Shallow frying is a healthier option than deep frying but less healthy than boiling or baking. That puts sautéed potatoes squarely in the middle tier. The calorie count climbs noticeably compared to water-based methods, but the damage is far more controllable than deep frying because you decide how much oil goes into the pan.
Pan frying significantly increases the calorie and fat content, especially when using oils high in saturated fats, and nutritionally it is among the less beneficial methods for preparing potatoes. Choosing a heart-healthy oil and keeping the quantity modest changes the equation. Hash browns and home fries fall into this category: technically pan-fried, but often with more oil than a simple sauté.
#9 – Deep Frying / French Fries (An Occasional Food, Not a Staple)
The energy content of potatoes that have been deep-fried can be two or three times higher than for boiled or baked potatoes, making these forms of potatoes far less suitable for those on a weight management plan. That gap is real and persistent across studies. The potato itself hasn’t changed – only what’s been done to it.
Frying potatoes increases the formation of potentially harmful chemicals like acrylamides, and a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who ate fried potatoes twice a week saw an increased risk of death. The study examined potato intake in 4,400 people between the ages of 45 and 79, and by the end of the eight-year period, those who ate fried potatoes were more than twice as likely to have died. That’s a striking finding, though it’s worth noting that frequent fried food consumption often accompanies other dietary patterns.
#10 – Potato Chips (The Bottom of the Ranking)
The first way in which potato chips are unhealthy is the amount of calories, fat, and sodium they contain due to being deep fried and heavily seasoned – but there is another factor that makes snack foods like chips so damaging for health in the long term. They are engineered to be almost impossible to stop eating.
Nutritionists use the phrase “hyper-palatable” to describe foods so ludicrously tasty that we can’t get enough of them. These foods are more likely to be overeaten, leading to higher caloric intake overall. Potato chips account for the largest share of total dietary acrylamide exposure in adults, while for children, fried or roasted potato products account for up to half of total acrylamide intake. The double problem is the nutritional profile and the near-inevitable overconsumption that goes with it.
The Bigger Picture
The potato is not the villain in this story. Preparation is. Experts agree that how a potato is prepared often matters more than which type you choose, and the healthiest ways to cook potatoes are steaming or boiling with the skin on. Colorful varieties add an extra layer of benefit: the consumption of one boiled purple potato a day for six weeks was found to significantly decrease inflammation, something neither white nor yellow potatoes were able to accomplish.
There’s also the remarkable finding from a 2024 Norwegian study: researchers found that people who ate around 35 ounces of boiled potatoes a week had a 12 percent lower risk of dying from any cause than those who ate about half that amount. That’s not a ringing endorsement of chips and fries. It’s a reminder that the potato, cooked simply and eaten regularly, remains one of the more quietly powerful foods on the planet.
