Control Potato Texture With Salt

As with other foods, most people use salt in their potatoes to make them taste better. But smart cooks know that using salt in different ways can make the texture of potatoes better or worse.

Boiling potatoes in saltwater soften them as the potato gravitates towards the salt in a process called osmosis. The salt chips away at the potato and causes it to soften. You can also get crunchier homemade fries by soaking potatoes in salt water before frying them. The salt sucks the starch out of the potato (which is what makes the water go cloudy) and causes it to go crispier when fried.