Market Look-For’s

• Avoid potatoes with a heavy amount of greening—a sign they’ve been exposed to the sun. The greening is mildly toxic and can give you a belly ache. If it is mild, simply peel it off with a vegetable peeler.
• Dark spots or rotty patches—sign of insects or poor storage.
• Sprouts are the potato trying to grow. It will happen naturally in the spring but also indicates that the starches have been converted to sugars to spur reproductive growth. If there is a little sprouting, no biggie. If there’s a lot, let them go.

Storage

• New Potatoes: store in a paper bag in a plastic bag in the fridge but eat them up!
• Older Potatoes: keep in a cool, dark place that won’t freeze.

Notes

• New Potatoes: first dug potatoes of the season often before the green plant has fully died back. Will have very tender skin that easily tears (not a sign of mistreatment).
• Older Potatoes: regardless of size will have firmer skins to protect the flesh and will store well.
• Waxy Potatoes: Varieties like Yukon Gold, German Butterball, and Austrian Crescent. Such potatoes have a lower starch content and their cells hold together when cooked. This makes them ideal for gratins and potato salads.
• Floury Potatoes: Varieties like Russets, Kennebec and King Edward. These have a higher starch content and are good for a fluffy potato. Excellent for mashed spuds, baked potatoes and they blend well into soups to thicken and silk-ify the texture. Just don’t boil chunks of them and hope that they will stay together.
• Potatoes are not inherently unhealthy. They are just often overloaded with fats making them so.