Grilled Baby Potatoes are the perfect side dish for any summer meal. We typically grill baby red potatoes, but there's a variety of small potatoes to choose from, including fingerling, yellow, new, or baby potatoes, in addition to red potatoes. No foil or parboiling is required.
🥔Ingredients
Small potatoes—red, baby, new, or fingerling potatoes. Larger, thin-skin potatoes can be trimmed.
Olive oil
Seasoning—kosher salt, black pepper, garlic powder. Or the seasoning of your choice.
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This easy grilled potato recipe uses a grill pan, which is the perfect way to cook potatoes on the grill. It depends on smaller potatoes or pieces, so no aluminum foil and without precooking with a microwave or parboiling.
Every BBQ or grilled meal needs side dishes. Everybody will love these grilled potatoes that are smoky and crispy with a creamy center.
Check out some other grilled side dishes, like Potatoes on the Grill without Foil, Grilled Potato Slices, Grilled French Fries, Grilled Mixed Vegtables, and Grilled Honey Glazed Carrots.
👨🍳How to Grill Baby Potatoes—Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
1. Wash thin skin potatoes and cut them into bite-size pieces, then soak in water and pat dry.
2. Coat with olive oil and seasoning.
3. Place in a grill pan on a 450°F grill.
4. Stir every 5-7 minutes until an internal temperature of 200°-210°—about 30 minutes.
For more details, keep reading. See the Recipe Card below for complete instructions and to print.
⏲️How long to grill potatoes
It takes about 30 minutes to reach 210° internal temperature for a creamy inside and fully cooked. They will be fork-tender at that point. This is dependent on the since of the potatoes and the grill temperature.
While 210° is the target temperature, 205° is OK, and less than 200° is unacceptable.
👨🍳Make them right every time
Use thin-skin potatoes. You can cut up larger potatoes like Yukon Gold potatoes or larger 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. A charcoal grill may be used, but you must control the grill temperature. This grill temp matches most chicken, pork chops, and pork tenderloin temperatures.
🧂Seasoning
Just Kosher salt and black pepper are good. We like to add garlic powder by using our All-Purpose Seasoning.
Add herbs or spices like thyme or rosemary with the seasoning for another flavor. Or sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese before serving.
🍽️When to serve grilled potatoes
I grew up in a culture that almost required potatoes at nearly every meal. So, this simple recipe can go with practically any meal. The cooking time and temperature work well on a gas grill while grilling pork tenderloin, grilling chicken breasts, or grilling pork chops.
Storing and reheating leftovers
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 air fryer at 350° for 10-15 minutes. You can also reheat in a skillet with a splash of oil over medium-high heat on the stovetop.
You can use the microwave with a slight change in texture and less crispy results.
❓FAQs
Yes, but to me, it is more complicated. You need to make a foil pack big enough to keep the potatoes in one layer and durable enough to be flipped or opened and stirred.
Spread the cleaned, oiled, and seasoned potatoes in one layer and seal the edges. Grill at 450° for 15 minutes, then flip or open the pack and flip the potatoes for about 15 more minutes.
Hopeful hit: Use a cookie sheet to flip the pack. It is onward.
Just thread them on and grill. I suggest using metal skewers for your potato kabobs; they will transfer heat into the center of the potatoes better than wooden skewers.
Yes, but the technique is a bit different. Please see my Oven Roasted Red Potatoes recipes.
📖The Recipe Card
Grilled Baby Potatoes
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Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds baby potatoes - red or others
- 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.
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 they are no more than ⅜ inch to the center of each 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.
Your Own Private Notes
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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