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No guilt recipe for healthy french fries cooked on the stovetop using a traditional fat and blanching of the potatoes to minimize starchy toxins. No fryer necessary!
Love french fries? Who doesn’t? The video and recipe below show you a way to make healthy french fries at home the traditional way.
By using this method, you can enjoy them and not feel like your arteries are clogging with each bite like you would if you ate them in a restaurant!
Just be aware that french fries are made from potatoes, which are nightshade vegetables. Some folks with digestive issues can sometimes be sensitive to this category of vegetables.
The great news is that old-fashioned burger joints are starting to pop up all over that are making french fries with healthy fat too!
By the way, if you take the time to make healthy french fries, be sure to use homemade fermented ketchup as the condiment.
Blanch the Potatoes First
One step that nearly everyone omits when making french fries at home is to blanch the potatoes before cooking them.
This greatly reduces the amount of carcinogenic acrylamide that forms during frying.
Anytime starch is cooked, fried, broiled or baked, this chemical forms. This is the case even when a healthy fat is used.
Thus, it is important to take the necessary steps to eliminate it from your food as much as possible.
Below is a picture of heirloom purple potato french fries that I cooked up recently.
Best Fat for Frying
Cooking healthy french fries is all about selecting the right fat for frying.
Tallow, sometimes called beef suet, is the absolute best fat for making french fries!
There really isn’t another traditional fat that comes close to the crispiness and flavor of tallow-cooked french fries in my experience.
You can either render tallow (suet) at home or buy it to make the french fries recipe below. You will typically receive chunks of tallow when you split a cow with a friend from a local pastured beef farm.
If you wish to buy, this brand and this brand of tallow are both excellent.
No Guilt Stovetop French Fries Recipe
No guilt recipe for french fries cooked on the stovetop using a healthy fat for frying. Includes traditional scalding of the potatoes first to minimize the formation of acrylamides.
Ingredients
- 2 medium potatoes preferably organic
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup tallow
- filtered water
- sea salt
- ketchup optional
Instructions
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Thoroughly clean and chop potatoes into finger size pieces. Leave the skin on.
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Place cut potatoes in a pot and add filtered water to cover.
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Place uncovered pot on the stovetop and turn on the heat to medium-high. As the water begins to simmer, lower the heat to keep the water just barely simmering.
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Remove the pot from the heat after 10 minutes, and drain the water.
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Dry the potato pieces thoroughly.
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Add tallow to a small fry pan and turn on the heat medium-low. Make sure the tallow is about 1/2 to 1 inch in depth in the pan.
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Add a handful of blanched french fries to the hot oil and let cook for 3-5 minutes or until golden brown.
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Remove the cooked french fries with a stainless steel slotted spoon and place on a plate covered with a paper towel. Sprinkle on sea salt while they are still hot.
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Top up the oil in the pan so that it is the proper depth if necessary and then repeat steps 7-8 until all the blanched french fries are cooked and lightly salted.
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Serve immediately.
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Refrigerate any leftovers after coming to room temperature.
Recipe Video
Hi Tammy, do you mean you have the chunks of tallow right from the cow? If so, then yes, you need to render it which is pretty easy. Just cut up the tallow into pieces about the size of you hand and put in a baking pan and warm to about 250F. The tallow will melt and then you remove from the oven and sieve/pour the liquid tallow into glass mason jars for storage. The tissue leftover you discard. Freeze what you won't use in a month or two.
Do I need to do this with the fat I skim off my frozen chicken stock as well? Or can I just use it?
Oh those look so good! I got some tallow from the grass fed beef I recently got from a local farm and I haven't done anything with it yet except put it in the freezer 🙂
If I recall correctly, I need to render it somehow to make it useable for frying, is that right? I know I've read it somewhere, do you have directions on your blog for that? or a video?? that would be awesome!
Thanks,
Tammy
One of the things I have been doing (also no beef tallow here) is using either coconut oil, or some good naturally-raised pork lard (I get the fat back from a farmer and render the lard myself). I use organic sweet potatoes, peel and cube them, then mix them with melted coconut oil, sea salt, cayenne pepper and some fresh rosemary. I then bake them on a cookie sheet with sides at 450 degrees for about 20-25 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees for another 10 minutes or so.
They are heavenly and I am very addicted to them!
Sarah- do you think that lard would work as well? Since it is more easily aquired, I use it for some frying. I usually make my fries in the oven, also, but would love some crispy fries from time to time 🙂
Hi Lisa, bacon grease is FABULOUS! Great idea!! I use mine for cooking up eggs – potatoes are a great way to go too! YUM
Hi Cyn – the way you make them is wonderful too! Yes, I know what you mean. There is just SOMETHING about the crunchiness of the french fry though!
Hi Margaret – yes the tallow can be saved and used for something else. That 1/2 inch or so of tallow you saw in the pan that I used – most of that would be used up making 3-4 small batches of fries (1 large organic potato) to give you some idea. You would not have a lot left over.
Can the tallow be saved and used again for fries, or anything else?
Great video Sarah! I'd just like your thoughts on something. My grandmother used to save her bacon grease and my granddad would fry up sliced potatoes for breakfast several times a week using that grease. When my husband and I go camping I often take my store of bacon grease along and that is our camping "treat" that we add to our breakfast. We fry our sliced potatoes in cast iron pans over a fairly moderate heat and they are absolutely heaven. I'm just wondering what you think about using the bacon grease for this as I realize it is very different from tallow.
Oh! Oh! It's only 9am and I am wanting some french fries!
My alternative, since for right now I have no beef tallow, is to oven bake my fries. Brushed with a bit of olive oil and salt, they are mmm…mmm… good!
But…they are not fried, which is what I am truly craving:(