Mini Hasselback Potatoes

Mini Hasselback Potatoes are crisp on the outside and tender in the center. They are a showstopping accompaniment to a holiday dinner, or great to serve as an appetizer along with a dip.

Full disclosure, I remember my fellow students and I rolling our eyes at some of the techniques we learned in culinary school.

Many things, like learning how to tournée vegetables, just seemed so out of place in the 21st century. When were we ever going to use that? (I still haven’t).

Others seemed silly as the instructor was demonstrating, but once I tasted the finished product, I couldn’t deny that I was happy to have learned it.

These Mini Hasselback potatoes fall into the second category. Like my roasted acorn squash slices and apple rose tart, they may look SUPER fancy, but are actually pretty easy for any home cook with a sharp knife to accomplish.

The combination of an extra crisp outside and super tender center of this Easter potato recipe will have you going back for a second helping. They’re also one of my favorite side dishes for ribs.

What are Hasselback potatoes?

Despite being somewhat adjacent to many of the classical French techniques I learned in culinary school, it’s thought that Hasselback potatoes were created in Sweden.

Why the name? They may have been created by a chef at Hasselbacken restaurant in Stockholm.

The restaurant is still in business today, and an entire section of their menu is devoted to Hasselback potatoes, of course. When I make it to Sweden, I am for sure going there!

You’ll need just 6 ingredients to make mini Hasselback potatoes:

• baby potatoes – I used a combination of baby red and white potatoes. You can use any small baby potatoes to make this recipe. Extra potatoes can be used for a baked potato pizza or mashed and turned into a potato cake.
• olive oil – this will crisp up the potatoes, as well as provide quite a bit of flavor.
• salt and pepper – so so crucial. Don’t skip the salt and pepper.
• rosemary – this is my favorite herb for these mini potatoes, but I discuss other options below. Extra rosemary can be turned into rosemary simple syrup recipe for a rosemary cocktail.
• Parmesan cheese – this is optional (and omit this if you want to keep this Easter potato recipe vegetarian), but a dusting of grated Parmesan cheese added at the end is so so good. Pecorino Romano is also great!

Chopsticks are your friend for mini Hasselback potatoes:

To be completely honest slicing baby potatoes into Hasselback potatoes can be a little bit time consuming, and you WILL inevitably slice all the way through a few potatoes on accident.

But I have a trick that works really well: place a chopstick on either side of each potato and use it as a guide. This allows you to quickly and efficiently slice the potatoes without going all the way through, since the chopsticks will stop your knife. Save the chopsticks for orange ginger chicken!

Why this is the best Easter potato recipe:

While Thanksgiving is SO dedicated to mashed potatoes (Greek yogurt mashed potatoes and homemade mashed potatoes with heavy cream being my favs), Easter gives us a chance to get creative with the potato side dish. While scalloped and au gratin potatoes are usually popular for Easter, they’ve never been my personal favorite.

Mini Hasselback potatoes look super fancy for a special holiday dinner, but aren’t actually that hard to put together. This Easter potato recipe pairs really well with pineapple ham, lamb and even beef.

And the best part is that, like my vegetarian quiche, they can be prepped for your holiday meal in advance.

How to make mini Hasselback potatoes in advance:

Mini Hasselback potatoes are best and crispiest served straight from the oven. BUT, there’s a big caveat here: they reheat really well!

To make these in ahead of time, you can do all the prep work a day or two in advance, and bake them halfway or even all the way.

Let them cool and store them in a covered container in the refrigerator. Just before serving, pop them into the oven to reheat them or finish cooking them, and serve!

Add garlic, or switch up the herbs!

I kept these mini Hasselback potatoes simple with just salt and pepper and rosemary for seasoning, and then a sprinkle of Parmesan for extra umami at the end. But there’s so many ways you can jazz these up more.

My favorite addition to this Easter potato recipe is minced garlic. I stir a few cloves of minced garlic into the olive oil before spooning it over the potatoes.

Rosemary not your thing? You can also use different herbs! Parsley and oregano are other nice options here. You could even do a combination of two or three herbs. If you bought chives for shrimp deviled eggs, those are great here too.

Choose your dipping sauce:

Do Hasselback potatoes REQUIRE a dipping sauce? Not really, but are they better with a dipping sauce? Definitely! A sauce is particularly great when serving mini Hasselback potatoes as an appetizer. You have so many options here:

• My favorite dip for mini Hasselback potatoes (and potato chips, and bread, and everything) is roasted garlic dip.
• If you’re not into garlic, sour cream with a little bit of horseradish and/or chives stirred in is easy and perfect.
• Drizzling balsamic glaze over Hasselback potatoes kind of takes them to another level.
• My feta dressing isn’t just for salad. It’s amazing on mini Hasselback potatoes, especially if you’re serving them with lamb!
• Cilantro chimichurri is a great option if you’re serving steak, because it’s a good sauce for the potatoes AND the meat!