Any former Wendy’s employees here who can enlighten me as to the preparation and cooking of these wonderful tubers compared to the really crappy baked potatoes we apparently serve at home?
Potato type?
Microwaved?
Pre-baked and re-heated?
What’s the straight dope?
Cheers.
More importantly, why is it whenever we make a Wendy’s run at work and three of us want potatoes, they only have one left?
I like mine with the chili and sour cream.
Good timing. I’m 43 years old, and a few days ago I made the BEST FREAKING BAKED POTATO I’VE EVER EATEN IN MY WHOLE LIFE! I could never make baked potatoes that came out any good… until this time. Leave it to Alton to give me the perfect recipe, and it’s so easy!
Preheat to 350. Take your basic baking potatoes (russet), wash them and dry them, then poke them 8 or 10 times each so that the moisture can escape while they’re cooking. Give them a coating of canola oil, then sprinkle them with kosher salt. Cook them right on the rack in your oven, not on a pan (you should probably put tin foil under the potatoes to catch anything), for at least an hour (I did an hour and 10 minutes for 3 of them).
Best baked potato ever. If you just keep the little baked potato tray from Wendy’s and serve it on that, she’ll never know.
The inside needs to be fluffy; and the skin needs to be soft. Does this accomplish both?
Doesn’t the canola oil add a significant amount of calories? I always eat the skins!
If you are putting that much oil on it, you have bigger problems than calories! 1 tablespoon of canola oil has 124 calories. There might be a quarter that on the skin.
My dad made baked potatoes by washing them drying them, Poking them about a dozen times with a fork, rubbing margarine all over them (for some reason, we didn’t use butter – I don’t know why), wrapping them in aluminum foil, and baking them (I don’t remember the time or temp). That’s the way I make them if I bake them. I’m just as likely to do the same thing (with out the margarine or butter) and nuking them.
A Czech neighbour would wrap them in foil and throw them on the coals. We’d eat them just with salt.
Wrapping them keeps the skin softer, which isn’t a plus in my book. I like the skin to be slightly crunchy.
If you bake them at high heat, or cook them in coals, they should have some crunch.
Don’t refrigerate potatoes. Refrigerating them makes them sweet.
This does not deliver a nice, soft skin. I’ve done this method many times and the skin comes out somewhere between leathery and crunchy. Ilike that but if you need softer skin then wrap them in foil for baking and then let them rest for 20 minutes or so before unwrapping and eating.
The Wendy’s in my area quit selling baked potatoes about a year ago. My cheap meal off the dollar menu was a double cheeseburger with no vegies or catsup, a sour cream and chive baked potato with extra sour cream, a small chili and a drink. Smash up the potato with the sour cream and chives and pour half the chili over the top. After I ate that, the burger minus the top bun went in the dish and the rest of the chili was poured over the top. A tasty filling meal for less than 5 bucks.
The best baked potato is to do a combination of techniques: nuke it first for about 6 minutes–this’ll get the insides super-fluffy.
Then chuck it straight into the oven. A tiny bit of oil (and I mean take a few drops and just smear it around–if you’re using more than 1/4 tsp oil, you’re using way, WAY too much). And choose a flavorful oil (I like olive oil for this purpose) Don’t salt it, it makes the skin leathery.
Toss it in a 400F oven for about 15-20 minutes to finish cooking and to get the skin crisp (or wrap it in foil if you like soft skins. Yuk. 
) It’s even better if you have a convection oven.
In any event, the combo of cooking methods makes a perfect potato.
I know what you mean about their potatoes, they do have a different consistency than what I make at home. It makes me think that they bake them, and possibly, keep them warm in a steam drawer.
Restaurants traditionally have steam drawers to keep bread warm and ready to serve. It doesn’t steam enough to cook anything, just enough to keep things warm.
I’m keen now to hear from a Wendy’s employee and learn the truth.
Mom would probably never go to Wendy’s if they didn’t have baked potatoes. That’s as inconceivable (does that word mean what I seem to think it means?) as a Wendy’s without hamburgers!
I think that Wendy’s DOES keep their baked potatoes in some kind of warming drawer, how else would they have them available for drive through customers?
I scrub my potatoes, and then I just put them on the oven, on the rack. My husband prefers to have his wrapped in foil, so sometimes I’ll do that if he’s eating too, but many times I’ll just bake myself a potato for lunch and have some cheese on it.
Yes. They’re scrubbed and wrapped in foil - plain with no oil or salt or pricking. Tossed in the convection oven for about an hour, then stored in a warming drawer on low temp. They’re usually held most of the day, most stores will only do one or two batches.
This can also be very very bad, as after a point of course the taters dry out. It’s been totally hit or miss for me when ordering them, sometimes they’re perfect, sometimes they’re brown throughout and nasty. Generally a very nice quality potato, but there is of course no way to tell which ones are sorta rotten inside before cooking, and I have gotten those, too. Wouldn’t recommend ordering potatoes late night, or at the start of lunch.
-former Wendy’s employee
ETA: Your daughter may like these with the fluffy insides because after a little while in the drawer, some moisture is leeched out and you end up with almost pure tater goodness. Drawer temp too high or too long in there will kill it, making me thing you’ve got a good Wendy’s or your family is good at hitting them at the right time.
“They put an addictive chemical in them that makes you crave them fortnightly!!”
I believe this! Same reason the burgers are so much tastier than the burgers I labor over, or not, in the kitchen. “So what’s for supper?” “Burgers and fries (or baked potatoes a la Wendy’s)”. “Oh.”
“So what’s for supper?” “I don’t feel like cooking, I’m running out to Wendy’s.” All of a sudden I am the most popular person alive, everyone in the family comes to tell me what they want and when it’s all consumed, I am FERVENTLY thanked for treating them to teh fast food.
That’s pretty much how I make them at home, sometimes a pre-nuke of a few minutes just to start them off. We were at Wendy’s yesterday and she said “If you could make these at home, I’d have a potato every night.” Given how picky she is with everything, this would be a good thing.
I’m wondering if leaving a few wrapped in the toaster oven at, say 200 F. for a while might make them better? We use russets at home. That appears to be the baking potato of choice for Wendy’s too.
Hmm, I actually never knew there was such variety in baking a potato. I just wash it and stick it in a 425 degree oven for about 75 minutes. Seems to turn out perfect every time.