Easy Pan Fried Potatoes with Onions

These skillet pan-fried crispy potatoes with onions are easy to make and only require 3-4 ingredients (potatoes, onions, garlic, and salt). They are great as a side dish, or a hearty breakfast with eggs and bacon.

This simple skillet potatoes recipe is adapted from a recipe I learned to make from a friend's mother. She called them Hangover potatoes because this was the most requested recipe people would ask for after a night of wild drinking!

These pan-fried potatoes with onions are AMAZINGLY flavorful, comforting, and very easy to make. It literally can have less than 3-4 ingredients. Hangover or not, I will gladly eat these any day - and since this is one of the most requested dishes (even from the pickiest eaters!), I'd say this dish is very well-loved as well regardless of how you want to serve them.

These are essentially Turkish potatoes. Traditionally at the very end of the cooking process, she would put in diced tomatoes to give the dish a more soft and tomatoey flavour. I tweaked the recipe a bit and omitted the tomato to because I wanted a crispier texture as my end result -- the tomato gives it a more soft and saucy texture. But feel free to add the tomato and experiment with the flavour! It gives it a whole new different flavour and it becomes a completely different dish.

I like to use a cast-iron skillet to make this dish since it holds the heat very well, but you definitely can use a high wall frying pan or a heavy bottom pot as well.

Ingredients and Substitutions

• Potatoes - For this recipe I like to use russet potatoes. I find they fry up the best and hold its shape well.
• Onions - You can use any type of onions for this dish, but I like to use yellow onions since they are always in my pantry and easy to find.
• Spices and Garlic - Garlic will give this dish additional flavor as well as paprika and cumin. You can omit any of those ingredients if you don't have them.
• Salt - This is a very important ingredient to this dish and you cannot omit it.
• Meat - This is an optional ingredient. I like to use leftover meat sometimes such as ham, or leftover turkey or chicken, which converts this side dish to a main course.
• Oil - Try to use oils that have a high smoking point. I like to use vegetable oil, peanut oil, or canola oil for frying.

How To Make It

Tips

• Add salt directly into the oil during cooking. Don't be shy with the salt. The salt crisps up the potatoes nicely and gives them an even saltiness. To test for saltiness, I dip a utensil into the oil and taste it.
• Frying the onions in the oil infuses it with amazing flavour which melds right into the potatoes. Make sure you are cooking the potatoes for a few minutes before you add in the onions to give the potatoes some time to brown and cook through.  Onions burn more quickly than potatoes and do not require as much cooking time.
• To give this dish something extra, I top it with a sunny-side-up egg, which transforms this into a hearty breakfast!

FAQs

• Do I need to boil the potatoes in water before frying them? No, you do not have to boil them first. For this recipe, you are basically parboiling them in the cooking in oil first, then you drain the oil and crisp them up with the remaining oil. This way, you don't need to dirty extra pots and pans.
• Why are the potatoes not getting crispy? Make sure you are not overcrowding your pan. Use a large enough pan so it doesn't cause any steam while you are pan-frying the potatoes.
• Do I need to soak the potatoes before frying them? No, there is no soaking involved in this recipe.
• Can I use olive oil to fry the potatoes? Nope, try not to use olive oil. Try to use oils that have a high smoking point. I like to use vegetable oil, peanut oil, or canola oil for frying.
• What do you do with the excess oil you drain? I save it and use it for cooking. It is infused with onion and is very flavourful.

Looking For More Recipes Like this?

• Honey Miso Garlic Roasted Potatoes
• Crispy Hash Browns
• Breakfast Sandwich (with a Hash Brown!)

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Recipe Card

Easy Pan Fried Potatoes with Onions

These skillet pan-fried crispy potatoes with onions are easy to make and only require 3-4 ingredients (potatoes, onions, garlic, and salt). They are great as a side dish, or a hearty breakfast with eggs and bacon.

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Course: Breakfast, Side

Cuisine: American, Mediterranean

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes minutes

4 Servings

4.75 from 4 votes

Made with ♡ by Joyce

Joyce's Recipe Notes

• Add the salt into the oil. It allows the salt to evenly coat the potatoes during the cooking process. Don't be shy in adding in more salt than normal, it brings out the flavours and you lose a lot of it in the oil during the cooking process.
• To crisp the potatoes, don't touch them too much during the initial cooking stage. When we touch them too much we agitate the starch which doesn't allow for that crispiness to happen.
• Add the onions after the potatoes had a chance to cook and brown up. (5-10mins) Onions cook faster than potatoes and will burn if they are put at the same time. Don't wait too long to put them in though, the secret is having the onions flavour the oil the potatoes are cooking it!
• To give this dish something extra, I top it with a sunny-side-up egg, which transforms this into a hearty breakfast!

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Ingredients

 

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• ▢ oil (canola, peanut or vegetable oil)
• ▢ 3-4 medium potatoes (diced)
• ▢ 2-3 small onions (diced)
• ▢ 2 cloves garlic (finely minced)
• ▢ 1 tablespoon paprika
• ▢ ½ tablespoon cumin
• ▢ ½ tablespoon salt
• ▢ pepper (optional)
• ▢ ½ cup ham (or any leftover meat) (optional)

Instructions

 

Preparation

• Scrub the potatoes clean. I don't peel the potatoes, but you can peel them if you like. Chop the potatoes into 1-inch cubes and set them aside.
• Peel the onion and dice them to about 1-inch in size and set them aside
• Finely mince the garlic and set it aside.
• (Optional) If you are using leftover meats, shred or chop them into small pieces and set them aside.

Cooking the Potatoes

• Add about 1 inch of oil into a cast iron pan (or frying pan) and set the stove to medium heat
• Add the salt into the oil. I use about ½ tbsp of salt but you can use less if you find it too salty
• Check if the oil is hot by sticking a wooden chopstick or wooden spoon into the oil. If it bubbles, the oil is ready.

  Add in the potatoes and let it brown for about 5 - 10 mins (They fry up better if they aren't touched too much)
• Add in the onions and let it brown as much as possible to infuse the oil with onion flavour! Cook them for about 5-10 mins
• Add in the garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes
• Drain excess oil (if there is any)
• (Optional) Add in ham and spices (cumin and paprika)
• Cook until the potatoes are golden brown and onions are caramelized and brown.
• Ta da! We're done! Best enjoyed hot

Nutrition

Serving: 1Serving | Calories: 374kcal | Carbohydrates: 29g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 29g | Sodium: 886mg | Sugar: 3g

*Nutritional information is calculated using online tools and is an estimate*

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