Gordon Ramsay’s oven chips are Desirée potatoes cut into 1cm batons, blanched for three to four minutes in boiling salted water, drained, tossed in groundnut oil and smoked paprika, then baked at 220°C for 15 to 20 minutes until golden and crisp. No deep-frying. No fryer to clean. Just a baking tray and an oven.
The recipe comes from his chip butty in Ultimate Home Cooking, where Ramsay writes “the only concession I’ve made to modernity is to roast the chips instead of deep-frying them, and to season them with smoked paprika. I think even my nine-year-old self would have approved.” In the video he adds: “one of my first ever jobs was working in a chip shop, sacks and sacks of potatoes into the rumbler which was the potato peeler all day long.”
The blanch is what separates these from every oven chip recipe that just cuts potatoes and throws them on a tray. Three to four minutes in boiling water softens the outside while the centre stays firm, so when the chips hit the oven the surface crisps quickly and the inside steams into fluff. Skip the blanch and you get dry, hard wedges with raw middles.
Gordon Ramsay’s Oven Chips
Course: SideCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy4
servings10
minutes20
minutes210
kcal30
minutesOven-roasted chips from Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Home Cooking. Desirée potatoes blanched then baked with smoked paprika at 220°C. He also makes herbed oven chips with garlic, thyme and rosemary in his Fast Food book, and plain oven chips with Maris Piper in Make It Easy. All three blanch before baking. 210 kcal per serving.
Ingredients
750g (1 lb 10 oz) Desirée potatoes, peeled
Groundnut oil for roasting
1 tsp smoked paprika
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
- Preheat and prep: Heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan) / Gas 7. Oil a baking tray.
- Cut and blanch: Chop the potatoes into batons about 1cm thick. Blanch in boiling salted water for 3 to 4 minutes, then drain and spread on the prepared tray in a single layer.
- Season: Drizzle with groundnut oil and toss to coat evenly. Season with smoked paprika, salt and pepper.
- Bake: Roast for 15 to 20 minutes, turning now and again to ensure even cooking, until golden and crisp. Serve immediately.
FAQs
Why blanch the potatoes before baking?
Because raw potato takes too long to cook through in a dry oven. By the time the centre is soft, the outside is either burnt or dried out like cardboard. Three to four minutes in boiling water does the heavy lifting: it breaks down the surface starch so it crisps faster while keeping the inside just firm enough to finish in the heat.
Ramsay blanches in all three of his oven chip recipes, so it’s clearly not optional. In Fast Food he goes slightly longer at five to seven minutes because his potatoes are thicker. In Make It Easy he blanches for four minutes with Maris Piper then bakes at 200°C. The timing changes with the cut, but the blanch stays the same.
Why Desirée and not Maris Piper?
He uses both, depending on the book. In Ultimate Home Cooking he specifically calls for Desirée and explains why: “all-rounders such as Desirée make great oven chips.” They hold their shape through the blanch and the bake without crumbling, which is the risk with floury varieties in an oven.
Maris Piper works too, and he uses it in Make It Easy for the same dish. The difference is small: Desirée has a slightly waxier texture that gives you a firmer chip, while Maris Piper is fluffier inside but more fragile on the edges. If you want chips that look neat on the tray, go Desirée. If you want maximum fluff and don’t mind some broken corners, go Maris Piper.
What does smoked paprika actually do?
It gives you colour and flavour without needing deep-frying. In a fryer, the Maillard reaction between the potato starch and hot oil creates that deep golden colour naturally. In an oven, the surface doesn’t brown the same way because there’s less fat contact. Smoked paprika fills that gap: it deepens the colour to golden-brown and adds a smoky warmth that tricks your brain into thinking these came out of a fryer.
Ramsay’s Fast Food version skips paprika entirely and uses garlic cloves, thyme and rosemary instead. That gives you a herby, rustic chip rather than a smoky one. Both approaches work because both add flavour where the oven can’t. Plain oven chips with just oil and salt tend to taste like baked potato with a tan.
Can you use an air fryer instead?
The method is the same: blanch, drain, season, cook. Air fryers run at the same temperatures as ovens but the circulating fan makes the surface crisp faster, so reduce the time by about five minutes or check earlier. The paprika and oil go on exactly as written.
The advantage is you don’t need to turn them. In the oven, Ramsay says “turning now and again to ensure even cooking” because the tray blocks heat from the bottom. An air fryer heats from all sides, so the chips crisp evenly without flipping. The trade-off is batch size: most air fryer baskets only fit enough for two servings, so you’d need to cook the full 750g in two rounds.
What goes with oven chips?
Ramsay serves them inside a chip butty with ketchup and buttered crusty bread. In the video he says “there’s one thing missing” and reaches for the ketchup: “my god, that makes me feel like a nine-year-old.”
For something more substantial, they’re the lighter alternative to his triple-cooked french fries when you don’t want to deal with a deep-fryer. Same potato, same crunch, half the oil. They work alongside his burger or with his fish and chips if you swap the deep-fried chips for these. His roast chicken with oven chips and a green salad is a proper Sunday lunch without the heaviness of a full roast dinner.
