Why French Fries Always Taste Better At Restaurants

If you're the average restaurant-going American, you likely consume about 29 pounds of french fries each year. That's about the size of an average 3-year-old or the equivalent of 77 large orders of McDonald's fries (via National Geographic). In all that fry eating, you've probably discovered that french fries tend to taste better from restaurants than when you try to make them at home.

So, what are you doing wrong? And what exactly are restaurants doing right? Making restaurant-quality french fries at home comes down to using the correct type of potatoes, oil, and cooking method. For example, most restaurants fry their fries twice. Plus, they often soak their fries in a slurry of special ingredients before freezing them for later. Once you realize what restaurants are doing differently and what the science is for achieving crisp, golden fries, you can produce better fries at home that taste just like restaurant fries.

To accomplish a soft yet crispy fry, temperature matters. When restaurants double fry their sliced potato strips, their first round of frying is at a lower temperature than their second round of frying. During the first round of frying, the goal isn't to brown the french fry; it's to soften up the inside of the potato to make it pillowy and creamy. However, the second round of frying is all about developing a crisp, golden-browned outside.

In the Popular Science video, food scientist Dr. Arielle Johnson says that, during the second fry, the key to a beautifully browned surface is to activate the Maillard reaction. She explains it as "the reaction between naturally occurring sugars and amino acids in ingredients brought to a high temperature." According to food chemist Harold McGee, the first stage of frying should be for eight to 10 minutes in oil that is 250 to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. The second stage should be in hotter oil around 350 to 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 3 to 4 minutes (via "On Food and Cooking").

Restaurants know that cellar-aged potatoes are best for making french fries. You'll want to store potatoes for your french-fry making at about 55 degrees Fahrenheit in a dark place in covered containers to duplicate the way growers store them. The ideal storage location should have about 95% humidity as well. Cellar aging causes the potatoes to go dormant so that they don't sprout while you store them (via Idaho Potato Commission).

Cellar aging in the dark also prevents an increase in toxic solanine on the surface of the potatoes (via Michigan State University). If you peel a potato and find green flesh beneath it, that means the potato has been exposed to too much sunlight. When you eat enough spuds that are green beneath the skin, you run the risk of developing solanine poisoning symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, or headaches. In worse cases, the toxins can cause paralysis, comas, and even death. How it affects you depends on how much you eat, how much you weigh, and how tolerant you are to alkaloid poisonings. So, a small child could develop poisoning from eating fewer green french fries than an adult (via Michigan State University).

While french fries have a starchy, carb flavor that is pretty amazing on its own, restaurants add seasonings that elevate the flavor. The most basic seasoning to add to fries after cooking is salt. When chef Samin Nosrat, the author of "Salt Fat Acid Heat," talked with NPR, she said that salt brings the aromatic qualities of vegetables to the top, which can make fries taste more like themselves. So, the first step to seasoning french fries in a way that makes them taste as good as restaurant french fries is to add salt.

However, there are plenty of other flavors that go well with potatoes, such as onions (think onion powder), garlic, curry powder, parsley, pepper, rosemary, and thyme (via Produce Made Simple). The king of amazing restaurant fries, Five Guys, uses salt and a proprietary seasoning on its Cajun Style Fries. Meanwhile, food celebrity Rachel Ray jazzes up her french fries with salt, coriander, and cumin (via Instagram). She says that these spices are "best friends, and they like to go everywhere together." You can season your fries to fit your mood or to fit the flavor profile of the other foods you're eating with your fries. Just don't forget the salt.

There are a variety of french fry cuts ranging from standard fries and waffle fries to curly fries and crinkle-cut fries. If you think about the last fries you got from a restaurant, their shape was likely mostly the same. U.S. Grade A frozen french fries must meet specific quality standards, including being "practically uniform in size and symmetry." If they're only "reasonably uniform," they're considered to be U.S. Grade B (via U.S. Department of Agriculture). A big reason you should use fries that are similar in size and shape is that you want them to all finish cooking at the same time. If you have some tiny slivers of fries in with the same batch as big fat fries, some of your fries will burn in the time that it will take for others to get done.

It's entirely possible to cut your french fries by hand. However, you'll get more uniform results with a dedicated french fry cutter. If you make french fried potatoes often, a cutter can save you time and help you create more uniform cuts.

Restaurants can create perfect french fries because they have temperature-controlled fryers that can ensure consistent results. If you're trying to fry fries on the stovetop -– especially with an electric range -– it can be more difficult to keep your oil at a consistent temperature. Even if you keep a food thermometer in the oil, you may find yourself having to constantly adjust the heat dials on your stove to keep the oil in the proper temperature range.

While you can use a wok or Dutch oven on the stovetop for frying, investing in a dedicated deep fryer will make cooking french fries at home much easier. Because the temperature stays consistent and many fryers come with timers, you don't have to worry as much about getting the oil beyond its smoke point or burning your fries. Of course, restaurants have fancier deep fryers than what most home cooks add to their kitchens. Commercial fryers have larger capacities, may have built-in filtration, have quick recovery times between batches, and may even be connected directly to the gas line (via Webstaurant Store).

If you think that restaurant french fries are nothing but potatoes, you'd be wrong in most cases. The truth is that restaurants' food production plants often coat restaurant french fries in other ingredients before freezing and shipping. A quick look at the ingredient list for fries from Wendy's reveals that, besides potatoes and cooking oil, the fries are coated with four types of food starch, rice flour, salt, leavening, dextrose, xanthan gum, and a chemical to help them retain color. McDonald's coats its fries with natural beef flavor (derived from wheat and milk), dextrose, and a chemical to help prevent the potatoes from graying or browning when exposed to air. The starch helps make the fries crispier (via Sporked). Meanwhile, since dextrose is a type of sugar, it helps with the browning process when the fries reach high temperatures (via ABC News).

If you want to make fries at home that taste like restaurant fries, you can't just throw a handful of potatoes into your fryer. Instead, you'll want to add crisping and flavoring components. For example, if you want to make copycat McDonald's fries, you would start out brining frozen shoestring fries in a slurry of ingredients. Then you would freeze the fries for about five minutes before deep frying. The results are more similar to restaurant fries than frying plain cut potatoes alone.