Definitely a cut above the usual roasted potatoes! The unique thing about Greek Lemon Potatoes is that they are cooked in a heavily flavoured lemon garlic broth so they suck up all that flavour before roasting to golden perfection. They’re utterly addictive!
Greek Lemon Potatoes: A fresh spin on roast spuds
Welcome back to the final instalment of GREEK WEEK!!! We started the week with Greek Chicken marinated in the most incredible yogurt marinade, served up a big pan of homemade Greek Baklava on Wednesday and we’re finishing up the week with the much anticipated Greek Lemon Potatoes!
We’re serving all these with a side of fresh Greek Salad and Tzatziki for dolloping (in the Greek Chicken recipe) – and see here for more Greek recipes.
Plate smashing is optional – but loads of garlic in everything is not!
Let’s be clear about one thing up front:
These are not your usual roasted potatoes
Don’t get me wrong. Throw spuds in the oven drizzled with oil, salt and pepper, and I’ll happily munch my way through them.
Make the effort to follow a few extra steps to make the crunchiest roast potatoes you’ve ever had, and it’s like all my Christmases have come at once. Thick, craggy crusts, perfectly seasoned, fluffy insides.
But these roasted Greek Lemon Potatoes….
These are unlike any other roasted potato I’ve ever had because they’re flavoured all the way through. Flavoured with all THIS ↓↓↓
How I cut potatoes for this recipe
We want chunky pieces for this recipe so they hold up to the relatively long cooking time. I cut medium potatoes into 3 pieces, as pictured below, and large potatoes into quarters or thick wedges.
HALF BRAISED, HALF ROASTED
The idea behind Greek Lemon Potatoes is that they are braised in a lemon-garlic flavoured broth so they suck up all that flavour, then you continue roasting them until the liquid evaporates, leaving behind just the oil to roast the potatoes until golden.
The concept sounds easy enough, but actually, it’s quite tricky to do in one pan. I swear, it’s scientifically impossible to roast potatoes until golden without the garlic burning. It’s one or the other – golden garlic or golden potatoes (unless, like I do with my Herb Roasted Potatoes, you add the garlic midway through cooking).
Also, I kept ending up with burnt ridges on the potato from the lemon juice and broth that caramelises on the base of the pan, and a disappointing lack of golden crusts promised by recipes I used.
After two, three, five, seven attempts, I threw every recipe I read out the window (virtually) and settled on an easier, less risky way of making Greek Lemon Potatoes so they come out as golden as possible: Braise in one pan to suck up flavour, transfer to a tray to bake until golden, drizzled with the flavoured oil from Pan 1.
How to make Greek Lemon Potatoes (my safer way)
You can skip the transference step if you want. But just be mindful that you’ll need to keep a super close eye on the potatoes and they won’t be as golden as you see in these photos, you’ll likely end up with thin dark burnt ridges and the garlic with burn (gee, I’m really making this sound appetising! 😂)
In the interest of total transparency …
Because I hate recipes that lie, I want to be 100% clear about expectations: these are not the crispiest roast potatoes in the world. I truly think it’s scientifically impossible to get seriously crispy roast potatoes once they’ve been submerged in all that lemon and broth (believe me, I tried my heart out!).
So if seriously crunchy potatoes is what you are after – and I’m talking seriously thick crunchy crust and they stay crisp for ages – use this recipe: Truly Crunchy Roast Potatoes.
But these Greek Lemon Potatoes do have nice crispy edges and some crispy surfaces (see video and photos) and in any case, you won’t miss major crunch factor because these have so much more flavour than any other roasted potato.
It was actually scary how much of these I was able to consume in one sitting. I just couldn’t stop – they are so darn good!! – Nagi x
MORE POTATO GOODNESS
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT
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Greek Lemon Potatoes
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg / 2.5lb potatoes , starchy (Note 1)
- 1 1/2 cups / 375 ml chicken stock/broth , low sodium (Note 2)
- 1/2 cup / 125 ml olive oil
- 1/3 cup / 85 ml lemon juice
- 5 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp salt (Note 3)
Garnish (optional)
- Lemon wedges, fresh oregano leaves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200C/390F (standard) or 180C/350F (fan).
- Peel potatoes and cut large ones into thick wedges - about 3cm / 1.2" thick - and medium ones into 3 (see photo in post).
- Place in a roasting pan with all the other ingredients. Toss well.
- Roast for 20 minutes. Turn potatoes, roast for a further 25 to 30 minutes until the liquid is mostly absorbed by potatoes/evaporated and you're left with mainly oil in the pan.
- To crisp the potatoes (optional): Transfer potatoes to a separate tray. (Note 3) Tilt the original roasting pan and scoop off as much of the oil as you can (some juices is ok), then drizzle over the potatoes.
- Transfer potatoes to oven and roast for 20 - 25 minutes, turning once or twice, until potatoes are golden and a bit crispy.
- Return the pan with the garlic juices to the oven for the last 5 - 10 minutes or so to reduce down and make the garlic golden. (Optional, Note 4)
- Transfer potatoes to serving platter. Drizzle over the reduced garlic pan juices (or toss potatoes in the pan). Serve, garnished with lemon wedges and oregano if desired.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
LIFE OF DOZER
When Dozer stole a dog treat at the pet shop while I was trying to take cute photos of him eyeing off the treats…..
Delicious, thanks! Adding to the weekly rotation.
Wahoo!!
These look amazing! Bringing these to my in- laws Mother’s Day get together this weekend Can I make these a couple hours ahead of time and reheat when I get there ?
Hi Donna, you sure can! Enjoy!
Hi Nagi, thanks for some great recipes! I want to make 20 servings of this next weekend for a family do. I can’t believe I’m actually asking this, but could you leave out the garlic? Or perhaps just chop a few full bulbs in half to impart the flavour to the broth rather than mincing? I am also doing your Greek chicken, and I don’t really fancy peeling and mincing 50 cloves of garlic!!!
Hi Megs, I think you really need the garlic in this recipe, you could always cut the amount down if you prefer though! (I buy pre-peeled garlic – it’s a life saver!)
I second what Nagi said – the garlic is key, but if you go the refrigerated produce section you can buy jars of garlic cloves all peeled and ready. And I don’t ever bother with mincing! I just run them over my microplane zester and pulverize the little suckers. No press to clean afterwards!
As for this recipe… I made it. Just once. Never made it again. Why? Because I ate a WHOLE SHEET PAN OF POTATOES IN ONE NIGHT. I’m not even a big potato fan, I prefer rice. But these things are just evil-good.
Brenda, you really made me laugh with your comment!
I made these yesterday, and they were delicious. I ended up buying the gourmet garden chunky garlic tube as I couldn’t find pre-peeled garlic.
I don’t know why, but after 50 minutes in the oven, hardly any liquid had been sucked up. We ended up having to move them to the bbq with the lid down and the temp around 180. They probably took another hour or perhaps even a little longer to get to the point where most of the liquid had disappeared.
Having said that, the flavor was fabulous.
Think I could double the recipe to accommodate 6lbs of potatoes? Or should I make to batches?
You could definitely do that, I hope you love them! – N x
Good but next time cut the salt by 1/4 or use low-sodium broth, especially if serving with tzatiki. Topped off the lemon juice with an extra half lemon.
Hi MJ – The recipe does specify to use low sodium broth – N x
Made these with Greek chicken and a Greek salad. SO DELICIOUS! I served breadsticks with this to sop up the garlic sauce. I’ll definitely be making this again.
Best potatoes ever. Served them with Chicken Shawarma pitas. Thank you
I’m so glad you love them Danina, they are dangerously addictive!
Do you think the braising step could be done in the instant pot to cut down on time and then transfer to a baking sheet?
Hi Tricia, I haven’t tried to be honest – but it sounds like more work transferring them back and forth!
These are wonderful! My potatoes came out flavorful and crispy! I love that you included how much salt to use. Thank you for sharing the recipe.
You’re so welcome Dawn, I’m so happy you loved it!
Thanks for the great recipe. There was one single potato left in the serving dish – in fact no matter how many I cooked, I’m pretty sure they’d all have got eaten!
I love hearing this! You can never have enough potatoes 😂
These were amazing! Whole family loves them and they’re a fussy bunch,
Mine came out so crispy on the outside, even though I hadn’t expected them to, but were just so soft and perfect on the inside.
Definitely the best potatoes/wedges I’ve ever made!
Woah what a compliment, I’m so happy you loved them Sacha!
Thanks, Nagi! Made these yesterday for part of our Superbowl feast…delicious!
If I could eat potatoes everyday, these would be my go to. But will make again or my carb-reward. Thanks again!
I’m so glad you loved them Vanessa!
Oh wow, these potatoes are ridiculously good. I made them to go with your honey butter slow cooker pork and your garlic spinach and for the first time EVER my family praised my cooking! I felt really proud that I made an entire meal that was so so so tasty and just wanted to say thanks for making me look good. It seemed less of a chore too because I loved what I made and that never usually happens – I’m usually so tired it’s hard to enjoy eating dinner. I am going to be using your recipes religiously from now on!!
My sister and I made these to bring to a Greek themed potluck. One of the guests has family in Greece and has been there often. His comment on tasting these potatoes was “they taste like home”. The ultimate compliment! Dinner guests were asking to take some of the leftovers home with them. This recipe will be one of our “go to’s” from now on!
My family always picks a theme for Christmas Eve Dinner. This year it was Greek. These Greek Lemon Potatoes were a huge hit! Will be making these more often instead of regular roasted. Thanks for this recipe!!
these potatoes my kids said were the “Bomb” fabulous lemon garlic taste … never knew about the braising…
Thank you for the recipe. But your description prior to the recipe is too long. Please get to the point quicker. And some of your notes (ex: note 3) is not useful, if we follow your recipe, we trust the salt quantity), just makes for lots of going back and forth. Making succinct recipes is a must in the blogosphere these days, when some people just want the recipe.
I appreciated the extra information. It helps me understand better what kind of dish this recipe will produce, and it also helps me know up-front that these are different from strictly traditional Greek potatoes and how they’re different.
And you are? Do you see all those huge brands and endorsements down below in the page. Why don’t you go follow your own advice and start a mega successful food blog, and if you try to say you have one, go put your energy towards that.
There is a recipe link under the title that takes you right to the recipe if you don’t want to read the description. Most of us, however, enjoy reading her descriptions.