Salt-crusted outside, creamy inside: Syracuse Salt Potatoes

These boiled potatoes are a traditional favorite in Central New York. Recipe below.

THREE SIMPLE INGREDIENTS: POTATOES, SALT, BUTTER. Four if you get fancy and add parsley. Syracuse salt potatoes are one of those beloved regional dishes, so much so that the grocery stores around Syracuse sell kits—essentially bags of potatoes with a bag of salt inside. Having made these delicious potatoes a couple of times now (without a kit), they’re going to become a favorite in the region of our house.

As with most beloved regional dishes, Syracuse salt potatoes have an intriguing, if humble, origin story. New York’s Syracuse area was long a center for salt production; brine from salt springs around Onondoga Lake was laid out in trays to dry, then scraped and ground up into salt. In the 1800s, the Irish salt miners would bring bags of small, unpeeled potatoes to work each day. At lunch time, they would boil the potatoes in the salt brine. These salt potatoes comprised the bulk of their daily diet.

Syracuse salt potatoes are traditionally summer fare in the Central New York region, served at picnics, barbecues, clam bakes. Many people there consider sightings of salt potato bags in grocery stores as a sign summer has truly arrived. But to us, these potatoes, crusted with salt on the outside and wonderfully creamy inside, are a perfect autumnal dish too.

Making salt potatoes is as simple as the ingredient list: boil the potatoes with lots of salt, drain them. Melt some butter. Done. Give these a try. We think they’ll become a favorite in the region of your house.

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Syracuse Salt Potatoes

Salt-crusted on the outside and creamy inside, these simple boiled potatoes are a traditional favorite in Central New York.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Servings 3 to 4 as a side

Ingredients

• 1 pound small new potatoes (see Kitchen Notes)
• 1 cup Morton’s kosher salt (or slightly less than a cup of table salt)
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Instructions

• Gently scrub potatoes with your hands under running water. Set aside.
• In a medium saucepan, mix salt and 3 cups of water, stirring to partly dissolve. Add the potatoes and enough water to cover them by about 2 inches (eyeball it—because of all the salt, the potatoes will float up to the top).
• Over high heat, bring the water to a FULL, ROLLING BOIL (not a namby-pamby “yeah, I think it’s boiling now”). Reduce heat to a brisk simmer (again, not a namby-pamby barely steaming level). Cook for 30 minutes. You can start checking for doneness at 20 minutes, but honestly, you want the potatoes nice and tender inside. 30 minutes is good.
• When you’re getting close to the 30-minute mark, melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepan.
• Drain the potatoes in a colander and set aside for a couple of minutes. Their residual heat will dry the outsides, leaving them crusted with salt.
• To serve, you can put them in a serving bowl and drizzle them with butter, then top with chopped parsley, if using. You can also serve the butter on the side in small dipping bowls. If using parsley, sprinkle it into the dipping bowls.

Kitchen Notes

Picking potatoes. Traditionally, white potatoes are used, but we like the look of the crusted red potatoes. Whichever you use, you want them small and uniform in size.