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Clear your calendar. The potatoes are ready. These salt and vinegar fingerling potatoes pack all the great flavors of your favorite potato chips, but in a juuuust slightly more civilized form that’s perfect for snacking or as a side dish.
Why we love this recipe
Way back in 2009, these salt and vinegar potatoes were my very first recipe to go viral — and they’re still among the most popular recipes of all time. They’ve been shared on Pinterest something like a literal million times. People LOVE them.
I love them too. They’re:
- Super-tangy and savory (with instructions for making them milder if you prefer)
- Perfect alongside a burger or veggie burger, flying solo, or classed up with a highbrow steak
- Naturally vegan and gluten-free
Since those early days, I’ve updated the post for clarity and made a very small tweak to the recipe. If you’re a fan of old-school food blog content, scroll down below the recipe card to read the original text. I gotta say, it’s a banger.
What you’ll need
Here’s a glance at the ingredients you’ll need to make this easy recipe.
- Fingerling potatoes have a nice shape for slicing into two-bite pieces. They’re very similar in texture and behavior to Yukon Gold and other gold-fleshed potato varieties, so if you can’t find them, just go ahead and use what you’ve got.
- Good old distilled white vinegar provides the bold tanginess you expect from salt and vinegar potatoes.
- You can use kosher salt or fine sea salt — just note the difference in measurement.
How to make it
Here’s an overview of what you’ll do to make a fantastic batch of salt and vinegar fingerling potatoes. You can see the steps in action in the video that accompanies this post, and get all the details in the recipe card below.
- Slice the potatoes and place them into a small pot with the vinegar and a tablespoon of the salt.
- Bring to a boil, then simmer until fork-tender. Let them cool in the liquid for half an hour.
- Drain the potatoes and pat them dry with paper towels. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and arrange on a baking sheet in a single layer.
- Broil until lightly browed on both sides. That’s it!
Expert tips and FAQs
Yup, you can! Made with two cups of vinegar, these potatoes taste very tangy, which some people love. For a milder version that still packs a punch, use one cup of vinegar and top up with extra water.
Nope.
If it’s midsummer and you’d rather not fire up the broiler, or if you’re grilling anyway, you can make these bad boys on the grill instead. Follow the recipe through the boiling and cooling phase, then toss the potatoes in a bowl with the olive oil, remaining salt, and pepper.
Grill on medium-high for about five minutes per side, until lightly browned and perfectly tender.
Salt and vinegar fingerling potatoes are at their best shortly after you take them out of the oven. The combination of crisp exterior and tender interior is a fleeting joy. You can prepare them in advance through the vinegar phase and let them sit in the liquid until you’re ready to proceed, then broil shortly before serving.
Leftovers will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for a week. You can reheat and recrisp them in the oven at 350°F or in the toaster oven.
More easy snack-inspired recipes
If you’re into salt and vinegar potatoes, you might also really like some of our other snack-inspired recipes, just sayin.
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Salt and Vinegar Fingerling Potatoes
Ingredients
- 1 pound (454 grams) fingerling potatoes, sliced lengthwise to 1/4-inch thickness
- 2 cups distilled white vinegar, see note 2
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- In a small pot, combine the potato slices, vinegar, and one tablespoon of the salt. If vinegar does not cover potatoes by at least 1/4 inch, top it up with cold water until it does.
- Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until fork-tender, about 8 minutes.
- Let cool in liquid for 30 minutes.
- Drain well and pat potatoes dry with paper towels.
- Preheat the broiler with a rack about 6 inches below the heat source.
- Dump the potato slices onto a sheet pan. Sprinkle with the olive oil, remaining teaspoon of salt, and the pepper. Toss to coat.
- Arrange the potato slices in a single layer. Broil until lightly browned on top, about 7 minutes. Then flip the slices and broil until the underside is lightly browned, about 5 minutes more.
Notes
- Fingerling potatoes have a nice shape for slicing into two-bite pieces. They’re very similar in texture and behavior to Yukon Gold and other gold-fleshed potato varieties, so if you can’t find them, just go ahead and use what you’ve got.
- Cooked in 2 cups of vinegar, the potatoes taste very tangy (which some people love). For a milder version, try one cup white or malt vinegar and one cup cold water, plus any extra water you need to cover the potatoes with liquid.
- Instead of kosher salt, you can use fine sea salt. Use one tablespoon in the boiling liquid, but reduce the amount sprinkled on before broiling to 3/4 teaspoon.
- If it’s midsummer and you’d rather not fire up the broiler, or if you’re grilling anyway, you can make these bad boys on the grill instead. Follow the recipe through step 4, then toss the potatoes in a bowl with the olive oil, remaining salt, and pepper. Grill on medium-high for about five minutes per side, until lightly browned and perfectly tender.
- Salt and vinegar fingerling potatoes are at their best shortly after you take them out of the oven. The combination of crisp exterior and tender interior is a fleeting joy. You can prepare them in advance through the vinegar phase and let them sit in the liquid until you’re ready to proceed, then broil shortly before serving.
- Leftovers will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for a week. You can reheat and recrisp them in the oven at 350°F or in the toaster oven.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Here’s the post’s original text from 2009
Sometimes when I get too busy, I end up assigning a lot of tasks to my pretend intern. She is not super-effective. Sometimes I think her lack of effectiveness stems from my own carelessness in having hired the wrong Myers-Briggs personality type for the job. (She’s a total INFP.) Sometimes I think her lack of effectiveness stems from the fact that she is pretend.
Either way, today she has only one thing to do. She is clearing my calendar so I can sit at home and eat potatoes.
Something had to give
This isn’t the way the day was supposed to go. I woke up before six, because babies do not appreciate the subtleties of Daylight Savings. (They do not fall back, and they do not fall back to sleep.) I went to the gym. I did weighted walking lunges. This was not a day to mess with me.
But since June I have had one of those irresistible little Martha Stewart Living pull-out recipe cards in my files. The kind with the dappled lighting they pretend is filtering through the trees and onto your perfectly adorned picnic table. The kind it is not a day to mess with.
And that’s not all. Since July I have had a large bottle of white vinegar in the pantry. And since Sunday’s farmers’ market I have had several pounds of perfect little fingerling potatoes burning a hole in my concentration. Something had to give.
Something gave. It was my schedule.
Salt and vinegar potatoes for one?
The recipe below serves four in typical circumstances. Under certain conditions, however, it serves one. And that is all I plan to say about that.
The original recipe calls for finishing these beauties on the grill. Since we’re headed toward colder days, I’ve broiled them instead, which worked out nicely (but feel free to grill them on medium-high heat for the same amount of time if you’re one of those types).
I won’t lie—they’re a little intense. In fact, I’d guess that Myers-Briggs would classify them as an ESTJ. They could probably finish my chores in less than half the time my current intern takes.
In both of these situations, intensity can be a very desirable characteristic, and I will definitely be hiring back these little extroverts in the near future.
For example, at dinnertime.
Just made this, and my boyfriend and I really loved it! So tasty, and easy too! Highly recommended to anyone who loves salt and vinegar chips. I substituted half the white vinegar with apple cider vinegar, and I thought it added just a hint of cider flavor to the potatoes, a nice layer of complexity, if you ask me. Thanks for the recipe!
Priya, I’m so glad. Thanks for letting us know!
Don, I learned from using vinegar for cleaning that as soon as it dries, it doesn’t smell anymore. That seems to hold for cooking, too.
How interesting! I love salt and vinegar potato chips, so I’m sure I’d love this.
This sounds great but does your house stink of vinegar after?
made these last night – DELISH!
Kudos to you for taking on weighted walking lunges and the intensity of the salt and vinegar combo in one day. These potatoes sound/look well worth all of your effort.
I have always had a love/hate relationship with salt and vinegar potato chips, but I have a feeling that this homemade version would change that. My room mate is obsessed with salt and vinegar, so this seems like a treat worth trying aroung here.
Oooh, wow, those do sound intense. And pretty awesome.
I was all ready to volunteer for the intern job, but I am also an INFP.
You may be thinking that I need an intern myself. But I thought maybe, if I were your intern, I could eat some of those potatoes. And, for that matter, some poached Asian pears.
This has become my default way of cooking potatoes–boiling them first, then doing whatever I feel like with them. I’ve made many a batch of hash browns like this, from cold cooked potatoes I’d been keeping on my fridge (actually, cooling the, lets them dry even more and become even more crispy when you fry or bake). Love the idea of vinegar as flavoring!