Delicious Grilled Baby Potatoes with crispy golden skin are perfect for any grilled meal. Use small potatoes like red, new, fingerling, or trimmed larger thin-skin potatoes.
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Every BBQ or grilled meal needs some side dishes. Let's make it something everybody already loves, like grilled potatoes—perfect with that smoky, crispy taste.
As Thoreau said, "Simplify, simplify, simplify." This easy grilled potato recipe uses no aluminum foil and no precooking with boiling or microwaving. The grill temperature matches well with chicken, pork chops, and tenderloins.
Everybody will love these potatoes: Crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.
Serve with Grilled Porterhouse Steak, Grilled Strip Steak, Grill Chicken Breasts, Grilled Chicken Thighs, or Grilled Burgers.
And check out some other grilled side dishes, like Grilled Baked Potatoes, Grilled Potato Slices, Grilled Mixed Vegtables, and Grilled Honey Glazed Carrots.
🥔Ingredients
- Small potatoes—baby, new, fingerling, or red potatoes. Larger thin-skin potatoes can be trimmed.
- Olive oil
- Season—kosher salt, black pepper, garlic powder. Or the seasoning of your choice.
👨🍳How to Grill Baby Potatoes
- Wash about 1 ½ pounds of thin skin potatoes and cut them into bite-size pieces with no more than ⅜ inch of any part of the piece to an outside surface. Soak in cold water for 15 minutes, and pat dry if any cut edges.
- Coat with olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper, and garlic powder. Alternatively, season any way you like.
- Place in a grill pan on a 450°F grill surface temperature.
- Stir every 5-7 minutes until an internal temperature of 200°-210°—about 30 minutes.
🌡️When are potatoes fully cooked?
A fully cooked potato is 210° internal temperature for a creamy inside. They will be fork-tender at that point. While 210° is the target temperature, 205° is OK, and less than 200° is unacceptable.
✔️Tips and variations
- Use thin-skin potatoes. You can cut up larger potatoes like Yukon Gold potatoes or red potatoes. Or use small potatoes like new potatoes, baby potatoes, or fingerling potatoes.
- Russet potatoes are a poor choice due to their thicker skin.
- The size is important for tender results without burning. Try to get the center of the pieces no more than ⅜ inch from the surface of the potatoes.
- If the potatoes have a cut edge, they should be soaked in cold water for 15 minutes to remove surface starch. Pat dry with paper towels before proceeding.
- Use a grill surface temperature of 450°-500°, about medium-high heat on most gas grills. Charcoal grills may be used, but you must control the temperature.
- Add herbs or spices like thyme or rosemary with the seasoning for another flavor. Or sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese before serving.
❓FAQs
Yes, but to me, it is harder. You would need the foil pack to be big enough to make one layer and tough enough to be flipped or opened and stirred.
If you want to try a foil pack. Use a large sheet of heavy-duty foil. Spread the cleaned, oiled, and seasoned potatoes in one layer and seal the edges. Grill at 450° for 15 minutes, then open the pack and flip the potatoes or flip the packet using a large cookie sheet.
Leftover grilled potatoes should be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 4 days or frozen for 3 months.
To reheat leftovers, thaw overnight in the refrigerator if frozen. Reheat in the oven or an air fryer. You can use the microwave with a slight change in texture.
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Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
Preheat the grill to 450° to 500° surface temperature. That is about medium-high heat on most grills. That temperature matches well with chicken, pork chops, and tenderloins.
Wash your potatoes (about 1 ½ pounds) and cut them into bite-size pieces with no more than ⅜ inch of any part of the piece to an outside surface. If there are cut edges, soak in cold water for 15 minutes and pat dry. Mix with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and ½ teaspoon garlic powder.
Place in a grill pan or basket on the grill grates—close the grill hood.
Stir every 5-7 minutes until an internal temperature of 200°-210°— about 30 minutes.
📖 Recipe
Grilled Baby Potatoes
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds baby potatoes
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder - granular preferred
Instructions
- Preheat the grill to 450° to 500° surface temperature. That is about medium-high heat on most grills. That temperature matches well with chicken, pork chops, and tenderloins.
- Wash your potatoes (about 1 ½ pounds) and cut them into bite-size pieces with no more than ⅜ inch of any part of the piece to an outside surface. If there are cut edges, soak in cold water for 15 minutes and pat dry.
- Mix with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and ½ teaspoon garlic powder.
- Place in a grill pan or basket on the grill grates—close the grill hood.
- Stir every 5-7 minutes until an internal temperature of 200°-210°— about 30 minutes.
Your Own Private Notes
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips
- An easy recipe to scale up or down to your needs.
- There are two keys to this recipe, grill temperature, and potato size.
- The grill surface temperature needs to be 450° or a bit more. 500° max. This is the suggested grilling temperature for most chicken, pork chops, and pork tenderloins. Medium to medium-high on most grills.
- If your grill is too hot, the outside will be done before the center.
- The size of the potatoes is the second important issue. Cut up the potatoes so it is no more than ⅜ inch to the center of the piece. You need the heat to penetrate.
- Almost any potato will work if cut correctly, but russets, which have thick skin, are not a good choice.
- I use olive oil, but any oil is fine. With this grill temperature and the final temperature of the potatoes, smoking is not a problem.
- A potato needs to reach about 200° to be done. I like to use 210° as my goal.
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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Editors Note: Originally published May 30, 2017. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
Carly
Hi, I really like most of your recipes!!! You write and explain very well. For these potatoes, unfortunately I didn't understand about the size of the cut up potato. You stated they should be 3/8 inch from the center to the outside. Does that mean 3/4 inch per slice?
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Carly,
Welcome to the blog.
You are correct—about 3/4 across. You want a short distance from the surface to the center which needs to get done without burning the surface.
I will look at the text and see if I should clarify.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
Valerie Pickett
Love your recipes Dan! Thank you so much for sharing with the world!
Question on the grill pan, is the one you use just for the grill? It looks like from your pictures that the handle has been unattached? Curious.
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Valerie,
That grill pan has a handle that will de-attach to get out of the way. Very easy to take off and to reattach when taking the pan off.
I have 5-6 different grill pans. I think that one was William-Sonoma but not sure. Any grill pan or basket should work for this recipe.
Dan
Beth
Trying this tonight. Quick questions - would this be indirect or direct heat (using a Weber grill so direct is over the flame, indirect not (obviously!). Thanks!
DrDan
Hi Beth,
Welcome to the blog.
Direct heat. The surface temperature is important. So this works well with chicken and pork but I cook beef at a high temperature and it will now work well if you are running a surface temperature of 550+.
Dan
Marsha
Great recipe - thank you!
One note: the icons on the left (for pinterest, email, etc.) aren’t off in a margin, at least not using an iPad. They cover up text and photos so I had to keep moving the page to read every thing. On-line iPad facsimiles sometimes lie, despite what developers tell you. Thanks!
DrDan
Hi Marsha,
Welcome to the blog and thanks for the suggestion. I have modified the settings of the plugin some. It is now 1/3 of the size. Hopefully, that helps.
I do this recipe over and over during the summer.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
Kathy
Thank you for this great recipe! I bought some tiny farm fresh red potatoes and read through all the recipes saying to boil them first. Got out my grill pan, did 3 rounds of 7 minutes, put my sirloin steak on, dropped temp just a touch, 5 and 4 and everything came out perfectly! I did use a frozen garlic cube instead of my ancient powder- just gave it enough time to meld perfectly. Thank you so much for this simple recipe with no soaking skewers or boiling!
Ron
Great recipe Dan. I was looking for a good side for our BBQ this coming weekend. We're getting new (small) potatoes here in Sweden now, so I'll be using those. Thanks.
DrDan
Hi Ron,
Thanks for the note. All the other recipes boiled the potatoes ahead so I had to do my own technique.
Note to readers: Ron is a fellow food blogger. He is an American living in Sweden now. You can find his blog Lost In a Pot at https://lostinapot.com
Dan