Uses for Potato Skins
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We all occasionally have potato skins left over from cooking or baking. Instead of throwing them out, check out all of these uses for potato skins that you can try!
Ways to Use Potato Skins
In an effort to make sure that we are using all of what we are buying, I thought it would be fun to put together a list of all of the ways we’ve used potato skins.
Some of these are fairly obvious, but hopefully, they will give you better ideas when needed! For more tips on combating food waste, read my article: How to Use All Your Food Scraps.
Wash and Eat Potato Skins
If you are making baked potatoes, you can always just wash the skins and eat them along with your baked potatoes. This usually works best if you have organic potatoes or if they are fresh.
You can also use them to make twice-baked potatoes if you are planning on incorporating them into your meal anyway.
Compost or Feed Potato Skins to Chickens
Of course, as you can with most scrap foods, you can feed any leftover skins to your chickens, or you can throw them in your compost pile to give them a second life.
Crisp Potato Skins Up
If you have an air fryer (or an air fryer in your microwave or oven), you can crisp up the leftover (baked) skins and use them for a savory snack or nachos. If you are making them for a snack, don’t forget to season them with your favorite seasoning first!
Use Potato Skins for Vegetable Stock
As long as your potato skins are clean, you can add them to a bag of scraps that you will later use to make vegetable broth. Potato Skins are full of vitamins and minerals so they make a great addition to stock.
Dehydrate Potato Skins
If you don’t want to store leftover potato skins in the freezer, you can also dehydrate them and turn them into a powder to use for later. This is a great method of preservation if you want to store them in a small space in a shelf-stable way.
Save Your Potato Water
Don’t forget that to fully take advantage of any potatoes that you cook, save the potato water to use for many different purposes! Here’s Why I Started Saving Potato Water.
What are some of your favorite uses for potato skins? Share them in the comments!
Merissa Alink
Merissa has been blogging about and living the simple and frugal life on Little House Living since 2009 and has internationally published 2 books on the topic. You can read about Merissa’s journey from penniless to freedom on the About Page. You can send her a message any time from the Contact Page.
This post on Uses for Potato Skins was originally posted on Little House Living in May 2024.
What would you do/make with dehydrated potato skins? I’ve heard of dehydrating the flesh for instant mashed potatoes, but not the skins.
You can just add them into soups or other things where they would easily blend in. They might not add much for flavor but they add some great minerals/vitamins!
I am reading a book now called “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.” I haven’t come across the recipe yet in the book, but I guess you can add Potato Peel pie to the list! It was a recipe born out of the Great Depression where nothing went to waste.
I have made hash brown patties with the skins, sautéed them and froze them. I had fried eggs o. Top of them this morning!