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
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: Duck Fat Potatoes or 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
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Greek Lemon Potatoes
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg / 2.5lb potatoes (Aus: Desiree, US: Yukon Gold, UK: Maris Piper) (Note 1)
- 1 1/2 cups chicken stock/broth , low sodium (Note 2)
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup lemon juice
- 5 garlic cloves , finely grated using microplane (Note 3)
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp salt (Note 4)
Garnish (optional)
- Lemon wedges, fresh oregano leaves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200°C/390°F (180°Cfan).
- Cut potatoes: Peel potatoes and cut large ones into thick wedges – about 3cm / 1.2" thick – and medium ones into 3 (see photo in post).
- Coat potatoes: Place potatoes in a roasting pan with all the other ingredients. Toss well.
- Roast 45 minutes: 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.
- Roast 35 minutes: Transfer potatoes to oven and roast for 35 – 40 minutes, turning once or twice, until potatoes are golden and a bit crispy on the edges.
- Heat pan juices: Return pan #1 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)
- Plate up: 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…..
Ok, I’m a lazy cook and didn’t care if they were crisp (which I love, but was too hungry to get to that step), but this was still by far the best potatoes I’ve ever made. The next time I tried to make them, I’d forgotten this recipe, so I did my own version with guessing at measurements–nope, not nearly as good. Now I’ve got the recipe saved! Thanks! (I’ve never commented on a recipe before, but these were SO good…..)
I had to cook the potatoes for a lot longer during both parts of the process. But it was worth it! The hours(!) it took only made the potatoes more precious and delicious! I also served this alongside lamb and it was kinda perfection. Thanks so much.
As a chef in a previous life i certainly appreciate your thoroughness with your recipes!
First saw the 12 hour lamb on the Rick Steves show, he was on one of the Spanish islands in the Mediterranean and I’ve been wanting to make it since. I have a quarter lamb doing it’s 12 hours at the mome 😉
I tried to sign up for the 3 cook books but it wouldn’t accept my email
Thanks, Nagi! My husband and I absolutely loved this one. I have a fan-assisted oven so my potatoes crisped up without having to transfer them to a baking tray.
Thank you. You are brilliant. I did the whole recipe in a large cast iron frying pan and it was perfect. My stepson recently eyeballed me at our favorite greek restaurant, lemon potato on his fork, and said “These are delicious, but yours are better.”
Made with both homemade chicken stock and a quick veggie stock, equally good. The type of potatoes is definitely key.
Yes you have to get the right potato to get the right texture! N x
this is going to sound crazy i came across this recipe as i was just making lemon potatoes & for some odd reason my broth is not evaporating! this has never happened! what could be the reason? they are golden potatoes. So strange! Your beautiful potatoes are what mine looked like in the past! not even sure 🤷🏻♀️
Mine didn’t get nearly as golden brown as yours, but they were still delicious…and would definitely make again.
I am so glad you enjoyed it, Lin! Your oven may not be as hot as mine – they vary. N x
I didn’t have stock used feta brine and omitted the salt from the written recipe. So good! Thank you Adding the extra steps. Perfection and better than what I’ve had from Greek restaurants.
Good idea!! N x
OMG – just simply delicious and thank you for taking the time to share the extra steps for perfection !!
You are very welcome Kelly! N x
So good Nagi! We had many of your Greek banquet for our 13yo’s bday and they were all so good. I doubled the potatoes for our party, braised for an hour in the oven, but on low temp due to slow cooking roast lamb. I transferred it and cooked in batches in the air fryer. And closer to serving I was able to combine all in the air fryer to warm/crisp up. Not a wedge was left. Thank you for all the inspiration.
Hello Nagi. Potatoes are incredible. Any thoughts on what to do with the remaining lemony garlicky braising liquid. Gonna freeze it. So there is time to respond.
Cheers
Dan
Lick it off the plate??!! I usually don’t have much left and I drizzle it over the potatoes or dunk my bread in it…you could also pour it over roast chicken…the possibilities are endless!! N x
Very good recipe, I toughly enjoyed them. I made enough to reheat some tomorrow but guess what they never made it! I ate the lot, I couldn’t stop munching them. Thank you from the UK
Wow on the Greek garlic lemon potatoes. Now that’s worth a try!
Obsessed with these potatoes! They have become a staple. Just wondering if using the same oven for cooking these the Greek chicken which temp do you recommend sticking with? The 200C or 180C?
Lemony heaven. Just really, really good!
OPA!!! Everyone went nuts for these 🤪 and I even made a double recipe! Really worth the time and effort doing all the prep properly 👩🍳
Those potatoes are the best one we’ve ever had! We made them to eat alongside a beef fondue and we ended up eating so much potatoes that we hardly ate any meat!
We had to adjust the cooking time because of the pan we used to cook them in but it was worth the wait and effort. Thank you so much for this recipe! 🙂
Made these twice and they’re perfect each time. Unbelievably tasty and such a great healthy meal prep dish.
I make these using this recipe, slightly tweaked, all the time. They’re fabulous! My one tweak is to add a Tbsp of semolina flour, (found on a Greek website), to help with the crispiness. Apparently that’s the secret. I add it just before I add the oregano. Gives them that authentic Greek potato texture. Yum!
These potatoes are absolutely amazingly delicious!!! Yet again another incredible recipe from you. My 21 year old healthy anti carb queen couldn’t stop eating them!! And our 18 year old (sick from her Covid vaccination) also couldn’t stop!! 👏👏👍👍
I also made the green bean salad with cherry tomatoes and feta – also devoured and enjoyed! Thank you for sharing your amazing recipes!