Cook beautiful purple potatoes in a cast iron skillet for an easy side dish. These potatoes are both wow in flavor and in appearance as they get brown but stay purple as well. I will also show you how to use these pan-fried purple potatoes to make a breakfast skillet.
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It's always great to have an easy to make, simple side dish ready to make at the drop of a dime.
Potatoes are great for this because you don't have to worry about storing them in the fridge and if you keep them in a cool, dark place they will last you for a while.
Just because something is simple doesn't mean it has to be boring. I love cooking with purple potatoes because their color is so beautiful. It just pops on your dinner plate.
Today I am going to show you how to take purple potatoes and cook them in a cast iron skillet.
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🍽️ Why Make this Recipe
I have already established this is an easy to make recipe, so that is a good reason in itself. What I like is how the purple potatoes brown along the edges so nicely that you have the contrasting brown and purple color.
Cast iron is my pan of choice. Once cast iron heats up, it stays hot helping to cook the food more evenly. There are fancy cast iron pots and pans you can buy, but I like to stick to the tradition American made Lodge jet black cast iron skillet. It's something that we use on a nearly daily basis.
🛒 Ingredients
Let's checkout the shopping list for this recipe.
- Purple potatoes
- Garlic powder
- Kosher salt to taste
- Dried thyme or dried rosemary
RELATED - Where to Buy Purple Potatoes
How many purple potatoes you can cook depends on the size of your cast iron skillet. I was able to fit about 2 to 2 ½ pounds of purple spuds in my 10.25 inch skillet. You don't want to overcrowd your skillet or the potatoes won't get those crispy edges.
You definitely can use fresh garlic as well. Be aware a lot of the garlic in the grocery stores is old. It's not uncommon to find garlic that is sprouting when you cut it open. You can still use the garlic, it's just the quality won't be as good. I think it's best to pick out a high quality garlic powder or buy a bread of fresh garlic when it's in season in your area and hang it up in your kitchen.
Like onions or shallots? Chop them up and add them in when you start up the potatoes. It would even be to your advantage to start the first, give them time to caramelize. Whenever I order caramelize onions with a burger at a restaurant, those onions are really as caramelize as I want them. To do it right it does take some time.
May I suggest using Vidalia onions when they are in season. I love using them because the yare low sulfur which means they don't make me cry!
I like to add an herbal element as well. Dried thyme or dried rosemary I think go the best with these potatoes. Taurus Mountain Dried Thyme is the best dried thyme I had tried. I get it from the single origin spice company, Burlap & Barrel.
📋 Instructions
Start by cutting your potatoes into cubes. Do your best to get the cubes as equal in size as possible so they will cook evenly. I will be the first one to tell you that I am not good at that at all, so don't worry if yours aren't perfect. .
Do I need to peel purple potatoes? Nope! I just leave the peels on just as you would with a red skin potato. The skins are more like that than a Russet which I would normally peel.
Add a 2 tablespoons of your favorite cooking oil to a cast iron skillet. Choose an oil that has a high smoke point like grapeseed. Then add your potatoes. Turn your burner to medium high heat. You will keep it there unless the potatoes seem to be getting brown too quickly, if so reduce to medium.
To completely cook the potatoes all the way it's going to take around 20 minutes or so. Could be less or more depending on the size of your cubes. Make sure you are hanging out not too far away and then you can flip the potatoes every 5 minutes or so to cook them evenly.
To test if finished, I take a potato out, let cool for a minute, and take a bite. It should be a little crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.
When the potatoes are done cooking place them onto a plate lined with paper towel if you want to remove any excess oil. I usually don't find it to be a problem.
👶 Purple Creamer Potatoes
Your grocery store may sell creamer or baby potatoes, which are really small, bite sized potatoes. More often than not I find bags of small potatoes include a mix of yellow, red, and purple potatoes. On the occasion I have found bags that were all purple, like the Fredrik's by Meijer Purple Creamer Potatoes you see in the photo above.
If you are going to use these, it will reduce your cooking time. I still recommend cutting them but only in half. You want to half that flat surface area for browning.
🍳 Breakfast Skillet
Could you make this into a full breakfast meal? You certainly can. Just add a couple sunny side up eggs to the potatoes and you got yourself a nice breakfast.
You will need to cook the eggs separate but you won't need to use a different skillet. When you finish cooking the potatoes, cook them from the skillet and immediately cook your eggs in. Then add the potatoes back in, they should warm back up from the heat of the skillet.
Want to add bacon or ground breakfast sausage? Cook either before you even cook the purple potatoes. Then you can use the sausage or bacon fat instead of oil or along with if you don't have enough to cook the potatoes.
With the sausage you will probably need more fat in the pan to cook the potatoes. Just break up the sausage so you cook it so it's the right sized pieces. If doing bacon, then crumble it and add it when the potatoes are finished.
🥔 More Potato Recipes
You can have a lot of fun with purple potatoes. Here are a couple other fun recipes we have on the blog using them-
- Swirled Purple & Gold Mashed Potatoes
- Baked Purple Potatoes
- Perfectly Boiled Purple Potatoes
I use potatoes to make some of my favorite soups such as Bacon Potato Leek and my Summer Corn Chowder.
Cast Iron Pan-Fried Purple Potatoes
Equipment
- Cast Iron Skillet
Ingredients
- 2-3 lbs purple potatoes
- kosher salt to taste
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
- 1 tsp dried thyme and/or dried rosemary
- 2-3 tbsp cooking oil
Instructions
- Run your purple potatoes under your faucet to remove any excess dirt. Then dry.
- Cut the potatoes into equal sized cubes. You don't need to peel them.
- Add cooking oil to your cast iron skillet. Heat up the skillet over medium high heat.
- When the skillet is hot, add your potatoes. Add in all of your seasonings.
- Cook for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring every 5 mins or so to evenly brown your potatoes. If they are getting too dark before being done in the middle turn down your heat.
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