Do you have a secret for a faster baked potato with a crispy skin and fluffy interior?

Never, gotta oil ‘em. ans SALT them and bake them in the standard way for perfection! Use ground course sea salt and olive oil for the best crispy but not dry skins! If you want perfect you must craft it with patience. haha

Yes pre-cook them and freeze them than put them in the microwave.

Microwave does fine for the inside, but the nice crispy skin doesn’t really happen in the microwave.

If I’m in a rush, I’ll use the microwave in the beginning but shave off a minute or so of the usual cooking time.

Then, I oil and salt them and bake in a 500 degree oven for 15 mins or so until that skin is nice and crispy.

You just want to be sure not to shave off too much time from the normal microwave cooking time. There’s nothing worse than nice crispy skin on a half-baked, half-raw potato.

I microwave for 5–8 minutes after poking holes in it. While the potato is cooking I turn on the toaster-oven and let it warm up to 475F. When the microwave is finished and the potato is steaming, I put oil on the outside and put it in the toaster oven.

Sorry, I dislike the salted skins, @Coloma. The crispy skin is the thing to eat and I won’t eat that much salt.

You DO this, @Tropical_Willie? Interesting. Next time I bake potatoes, I’ll bake a couple extras and try it!

Microwave is good in a pinch, @Seaofclouds, but lacks the crisp and aroma of baked.

½ raw potato, @Buttonstc, BLEH! Like some of the store-bought potato salads.

Interesting, @LuckyGuy! I’d try it if I had a toaster oven! :)

Essentially the method outlined by myself and Lucky Guy is the same except that I use a regular oven while he prefers a toaster oven and 25 degrees lower.

But both yield crispy skins. As long as you end in a screaming hot oven, the microwave start makes a negligible difference. It’s the dry air of the hot oven which produces the crispy skins and fluffy interior and the micro beginning saves about 45 minutes or so.

I was less specific on the time in the micro because that’s determined solely by the size of the potato and strength of the micro so you just have to use your best guesstimate and that’s pretty much the only tricky part.

And, like you, I hate store bought potato salad cuz they invariably have severely undercooked pieces amidst the rest. Nothing worse (except for the egg whites with the texture of rubber because they boiled them way too hard).

As usual, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself :)

Cook first. Then, cut them into smaller pieces, oil and salt well, and stick them into the pre-heated oven.