How Long To Boil New Potatoes (And Why)?

Exact Answer: 15 Minutes

Potatoes are one of the most popular vegetables, and one can boil them, mashed, grilled, or roasted. New potatoes will take about 15 minutes on the stovetop or in a steamer for each inch of thickness to fully boil. 

One must cook them with their skins on. It helps keep more nutrients in the potatoes because they’re not being discarded when peeling them. 

The second tip is to make sure that the water has enough salt in it before boiling the potatoes for any length of time. Salt can help prevent or lessen certain nutrient loss by inhibiting enzymes from breaking down the vegetables’ natural vitamins.  

How Long To Boil New Potatoes?

Potatoes take an average of 15 minutes to boil, but this all depends on how cold they are when they’re placed into the pot.

To boil potatoes, one should preheat the pot of cold water and add one tablespoon of salt to it. Then increase the heat until it reaches a slow rolling boil. 

Then place the new potatoes in the boiling water for about 15 minutes, depending on their size. If one wants them mashed, continue cooking for 5 minutes more. Drain well before serving.

When working with cold potatoes, the less peeled and more tightly packed, the longer it will take for them to cook through. If one wants their potatoes done in 30 minutes or less, then preheat the cooking water before preparing them so they can go right in after washing. 

Also, know that some nutrients will be lost by doing so—potatoes cooked low-and-slow release their natural sugars through steam bubbles which help create a golden potato crust.

Heat boiling point varies every few degrees Fahrenheit, and a good place to start is 140ºF. Another tip is to use a pot made out of copper or stainless steel rather than aluminum, which can cause an unfavorable chemical reaction that could alter food. The sweetness of boiled potatoes is due to the presence of simple sugars and reduced pectinases.

Suppose one doesn’t use enough water and too much heat. In that case, however, large-chain carbohydrates form and damage starches metabolically during cooking so that they cannot release any polysaccharides or other nutrients.

Why Would Boiling New Potatoes Take So Long?

This is because the new potatoes are very dense, and unless one fills the pot with water, it will take a long time to bring them to a boil. 

When one cooks potatoes in boiling water, they release starch into the water, decreasing how much longer the boiling process will take. If one doesn’t want that effect, they have to just season the potatoes before cooking.

Boiling potatoes do not require more as they are soaked in water, so there is no difference. However, there is a short shelf life and risk of bruising in store-bought potatoes. 

These can lead to a decrease in their nutritional value and cause browning when exposed to sunlight after purchase– meaning it may damage the peel before even getting home. Potatoes that are less than perfect can either be cut up into smaller pieces or peeled before boiling, which means they do not need as much time per pound/kilo of weight as larger ones.

It takes so long because boiling potatoes requires removing the portion of starch that is resistant to heat or its bulk. When boiled, this material is gelatinized, which explains why they are easy to mash up when cooked. 

The amount that needs to be removed depends on how many minutes one boils it for. 

To reduce cooking time:

1. Cut the potatoes into cubes.
2. Leave small new potatoes whole, cutting larger ones in half.
3. Keep pieces similar in size while chopping the potatoes to ensure that they finish at the same time. 

Conclusion

Overall, it takes 15 minutes for a new potato to boil because boiling releases an enzyme called pectinase from the potato’s cell walls. This converts starch into sugar dissolved in the cooking water as long as substantial amounts of water are used.

The good news is that microwaving the potatoes will do the job in as little as 10-15 minutes. The slight downside is that there isn’t always an even distribution of nutrients.

Another huge factor to consider is the size of the potatoes as well, and it also involves the prep time. It also depends on how much water one is using.

References

1. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/10/7/265 
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0260877405001597