Most Crispy Vegan Jacket Potato (British Baked Without Foil)

How to cook baked potatoes with the crispiest skin you’ve ever had. These British jacket potatoes are cooked without foil but there is another secret for getting the skins super thick and crispy with a fluffy potato center.

The best meal my mum ever made was jacket potatoes, baked beans, butter, and grated cheese on top.  I used to look forward to that meal every Sunday lunchtime and I still adore it now. (Although my cheese and butter are now vegan versions)

My mum’s jacket potatoes had the thickest, hardest, darkest skins I’d ever seen, and they were the best I’d ever tasted. 

For many years I tried to replicate these potatoes and never managed to get them right until very recently. 

I was always following instructions that would tell me to cook a jacket potato for around 1 hour.  After an hour I’d see that the skins were somewhat crispy but not as crispy as I liked, but they looked cooked so I served them as they were. 

Recently I found a broken website that didn’t even have the recipe on it, but told me the secret of making jacket potatoes with very thick dark skins. 

You have to double the length of your cooking time. 

I never would have thought to leave my jacket potatoes in the oven for longer because I assumed they would burn if I did that. 

But surprisingly they didn’t burn.  They cooked perfectly. 

I’ve finally mastered it, and I’m sharing my recipe for perfect British Jacket Potatoes with you today. 

My daughter would never eat her jacket potato skins until I started cooking them this way and now she adores them.  

You can also cook small baby potatoes in the same way, but with half the cooking time.

Don’t worry if you don’t like your jacket potatoes quite as crispy as I do.  I’ve given you instructions for a typical crispy potato alongside my ultra-crispy baked potatoes.

If you have an air fryer, you can cook these in your air fryer too which will save you money and will reduce the length of cooking time as you don’t need to pre-heat air fryers. 

Video Demonstration

If you’d like to see how easy it is to throw all this together, check out my video where I walk you through the recipe step by step. 

Click here to subscribe to my Youtube channel. 

The Structure Of A Plant Based Plate

Each of the recipes I create fits into my Plant Plate System.  This system incorporates 5 food groups into every meal. 

The 5 food groups are 1) Plant Protein, 2), Leaves, Fruit, And Veg, 3) Aesthetic Additions, 4) Nutrient Packed Carbohydrates, and 5) Taste

This recipe is a nutrient-packed carb side dish, and is not a complete meal.

The diagram below helps you see the 5 different components of a Plant-Based Plate.

Click here to discover more about my Plant Plate System and some of the benefits of eating this way.

Recommended Equipment

Here are the main kitchen equipment tools I have used to create this recipe.

How To Make This Recipe

There are the different ways you can cook rice depending on the equipment you have in your kitchen. Choose the cooking method below based on the equipment you have and want to use.

For Oven

• Preheat the oven and bake the potatoes until the skin is your desired crispiness.

For Air Fryer

• Bake the potatoes until the skin is your desired crispiness.

Ways To Use This Recipe

Here are some of my favorite meals that go perfectly with a side dish of crispy baked potatoes: 

• Vegan meatloaf
• Colselaw
• Beans
• Sauteed mushrooms
• Vegan chili

Ingredient Substitutions

• White Potato: If you don’t want to use large white potatoes, you can either use baby white potatoes or sweet potatoes.  The smaller the potatoes, the shorter time they need to cook.  A small baby potato might need 30-60 minutes to bake.  You can leave the skin on sweet potatoes or remove it, it’s totally up to you.   Sweet potatoes may cook more quickly depending on the size, so keep an eye on them.  Sweet potatoes will bake in 45-60 minutes.

Serving Sizes

If you’re following a reduced-calorie diet, add 130g of potato to your meal to serve one person.  This will give you just over 100 calories. 

Storage

These crispy baked potatoes will keep for up to 4 days in the fridge in an air-tight container. It also freezes well for up to 3 months. Defrost it before using it. Reheat it by warming it up gently in a microwave, oven or air fryer.

Other Nutrient Packed Carbs Side Dishes Recipes

Here are some more of my favorite Nutrient Packed Carbs side dish recipes:

• Easy Whole Baked Sweet Potato (Air Fryer, Oven, Vegan)
• 100 Calorie Vegan Cornbread (Air Fryer, Oven, GF, No Eggs)
• Oil-free Sweet Potato Fries (Vegan, Oven & Air Fryer)

Recipe

Now it’s your turn to make magic with food.