Golden Crispy Roasted Potatoes without a single drop of oil. Easy, healthy, low calorie and virtually fat-free!
It’s all about the simple things in life today. Like potatoes ❤️
I adore them. Nothing beats Crispy Roasted Potatoes to serve alongside your vegan roast. But, with all that lovely yummy crispiness comes oil and fat and grease.
Until now…..
Since the creation of my completely oil-free Loaded Taco Fries, I have been wanting to experiment a little more with using aquafaba as a substitute for oil when roasting.
Well I finally got around to it and these Healthy No Oil Crispy Roasted Potatoes* happened.
LOW CALORIE & VIRTUALLY FAT FREE ROAST POTATOES
I love traditionally cooked roast potatoes a lot and I am not going to lie, these don’t taste quite as good as those. After all, as unhealthy as using copious amounts of oil is, it tastes pretty good when roasted up with the humble spud. However, they are a pretty close runner up, and what you lose (just) a little bit in taste, you make up for in low calories, virtually non existent fat content and smug, feel good healthiness.
Plus if you are anything like me, you can put those calories you saved on the potatoes to good use when it comes to dessert.
And your oven will thank you muchly too! Oily things splatter EVERYWHERE and I’m sure you are all aware of how thoroughly awful cleaning ovens is. I literally have to not show mine ever in my recipe videos because I hate cleaning it and if you so much as caught a glimpse I might die of embarrassment.
CRISPY ROASTED POTATOES WITH JUST 3 INGREDIENTS!
These Healthy No Oil Crispy Roasted Potatoes are super simple to make. All you need are 3 ingredients and some salt and pepper:
Potatoes (obvi!)
Semolina (or cornmeal)
Aquafaba a.k.a magic bean juice
It’s such an easy process too. Check out the video below to see exactly how, but basically you boil the potatoes for a bit, drain and allow to steam dry, Then drizzle over aquafaba and sprinkle on semolina. Shake well to rough ’em up, then roast. Flip, roast some more, then EAT! ????
The roughing up is an essential part of the process. It creates a thick slurry of aquafaba, soft potato and semolina which coats and clings and crisps up beautifully. It also makes them turn gloriously golden as all perfect roast potatoes should be!
HUNGRY FOR MORE?
If you love potatoes then you might also enjoy my Lemon Garlic Air Fryer Roasted Potatoes, Vegan Potato Soup, Green Bean Potato Curry and my Melting Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes.
And if you love this recipe, please do check out my cookbook, and subscribe to my email list for a fabulous FREE eCookbook featuring my top 10 recipes. Being on the list means you will be first to see my new recipes and you’ll be kept in the loop on all things new and exciting too!
Healthy No Oil Crispy Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients
- 900g / 2 lbs potatoes , see notes
- 80mls / ⅓ cup aquafaba , the liquid from a can of chickpeas
- 3 tablespoons semolina , cornmeal can also be used but make sure it isn't too course. Semolina is not gluten-free so be sure to use the cornmeal option if you need to keep this recipe gluten-free
- Salt
- Pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450°F
- Peel the potatoes and cut into chunks. Timings here are based on a medium potato being cut into about 5 pieces. Make sure all pieces are pretty even.
- Place the potatoes in a pan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Once boiling the should take about 5 - 6 minutes to become just fork tender. As soon as they do, drain through a colander then leave for a few minutes to steam dry before returning to the pan.
- Line a baking tray or roaster with parchment paper or a Silpat. This is essential because no oil is used.
- Add the aquafaba and semolina to the potatoes, put the lid on the pan and shake vigorously a good few times to rough up the potatoes, then dig in with a spoon and stir them around a bit to get the potatoes slurry that has settled on the bottom to coat them thoroughly.
- Tip the potatoes onto the lined tray and spread them out so they are not touching each other then season with a generous amount of salt and freshly ground pepper.
- Place in the hot oven and cook for 25 minutes. Remove, flip them all over then return to the oven and cook for around another 20 minutes or until a lovely golden brown. The time will vary a little depending on your oven and the type of pan you are cooking them in.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
Estimated nutrition per serving:
Nomnom says
Does this also work with yams/sweet potatoes?
A Virtual Vegan says
It would need changes to work with yams/sweet potatoes. They don’t really need to be parboiled before roasting. But you could still coat them in aquafaba (you will need less as they will be hard and raw) then roast, or coat them in aquafaba, then toss through the cornmeal/semolina and roast until tender and crispy.
Julia Rossen says
Any idea how you would need to modify this recipe to make in an air fryer?
A Virtual Vegan says
I have just got an air fryer myself, but haven’t had a chance to try this recipe in it, or to try using aquafaba instead of oil. I think that maybe the semolina/cornmeal might blow off while they were cooking? I’d have to try it to know for sure though.
I just published this new recipe for roasted potatoes in an air fryer today: https://avirtualvegan.com/air-fryer-roasted-potatoes/ . It might be easier to follow that one. I think you could safely replace the oil with aquafaba as long as your basket is definitely non stick. You might need a tablespoon or 2 more to coat them though. You don’t have to add the lemon, garlic and rosemary if you prefer them plain but at least you’ll have the timings and temperature etc down. Hope that helps!
JudyToronto says
I’m loving the raves for this recipe. Would it work with sweet potatoes?
Melanie McDonald says
I haven’t tried it with sweet potatoes. I find they cook much more quickly than regular potatoes and I don’t generally parboil them like I do with regular potatoes either. I’m sure it would work but it would probably need some tweaking.
Annie says
Mmm. I want to take a go at these. We are corn-free. What would be the next best thing to semolina?
A Virtual Vegan says
Semolina is made from wheat not corn so will be fine!
Frances says
These were fantastic! I eat WFPBNO and hadn’t found a recipe for crispy potatoes and this one came to the rescue! Love it and have made it several times since.
A Virtual Vegan says
Thank you! That’s awesome. I’m so pleased you are enjoying the recipe.
Barbara Lindsey says
Thank you for the recipes. I will definitely be trying this one. I really love potatoes and without the oil, even better.
A Virtual Vegan says
You’re welcome. Hope you enjoy them!
Jillie says
We tried these tonight. Followed the recipe exactly and they came out perfect!! Big hit and we’ll be making them again soon! Thank you!
A Virtual Vegan says
Yay! That’s great. I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
Anna says
I almost decided to make mash potatoes for xmas this year (I try to avoid oil), when suddenly I disovered your recipe – thank you so much! :-)
A Virtual Vegan says
Awesome! So glad you enjoyed them!
Kathy says
You mentioned several times how unhealthy oil is. That is very far from the truth.. Olive oil and coconut oil and avocado oil or very healthy for you. Please do the research. They help with cholesterol levels and slow down digestion which aids in weight loss. Not to mention lots of other nutrients especially the coconut oil. They also help with the immune system
A Virtual Vegan says
I don’t say oil is unhealthy. I say using copious amounts of oil is unhealthy, which it is. No-one can argue that potatoes covered in oil then roasted are a health food. Any nutritional benefits the oil might have had, when roasted at high temperatures like you need to with roasted potatoes, are probably almost completely lost. You will also notice my disclaimer just below the video that says “*Please note that by providing oil-free recipes, I am not recommending an oil-free diet. I use oil myself in a lot of recipes, but sometimes I like to shave off a few calories if I can (because I eat too much ????) and I also like to provide recipes for those of you who are trying to reduce your consumption of added oils. ”
Regardless though, there are lots of different schools of thought on oil in the diet and we should be open minded and respect other people’s opinions. If people choose to eat an oil-free diet then that is up to them. The same for people who choose to eat oil. That is up to them and a personal choice.
If you don’t like oil-free roasted potatoes, it’s simple. Don’t make them.
ele says
Why so many ‘Eggland’ ads? Aren’t you vegan?
A Virtual Vegan says
Of course I am vegan. Unfortunately I have no control over what the ads on my site are for and they are necessary to cover the cost of keeping my website up and running. Without the ads there would be no site and no recipes. Ads are generally shown based on your browsing history though so usually what you see will be relevant to your browsing history. No brand wants to be paying to show ads to someone who isn’t going to be interested in their product. It’s a waste of their money. Sometimes the odd irrelevant one slips through and that’s just bad luck and there is nothing I can do about that.
Sophia says
These look amazing! I’m going to try them this weekend, although I want to use stuff I already have so I think I’ll coat them in oat flour instead of semolina. Hopefully the texture will still be similar!
A Virtual Vegan says
Thank you! I wonder whether oat flour might make them a little gloppy? Hopefully not though as I am seeing this late as I have been on vacation. Semolina is granular, as is cornmeal and it is that which aids the crispiness. For best results I would recommend using those over flour of any kind.
Sophia Greacen says
It went pretty well! I used 1/2 oat flour and 1/2 spices and they did crisp up! I think the aquafaba is the magic ingredient – thanks so much for the idea!
A Virtual Vegan says
Perfect! I’m so glad it worked out.
Anni says
Your site is fabulous, love the recipes, but the ads that keep popping up are horrendous and make it really hard to read a post, without constantly deleting them. :(
A Virtual Vegan says
So glad you are loving the recipes. In an ideal world there would be no ads, but unfortunately it costs a lot of money to keep my website running and maintained and the ad revenue is necessary to cover the cost. Without ads there would be no site and no recipes. However, the ads shouldn’t be popping up and getting in your way. There might be one that pops up every so often on desktop but that usually only happens if you hover over the small version of it. I use a very good ad network that nearly all other food bloggers use so my ads are basically the same as everyone else’s. I did have someone a while ago who was having problems with the ads getting in the way and after troubleshooting it turned out it was the browser they were using. It wasn’t a popular one and hadn’t been kept updated. As soon as they switched to an up to date version of Chrome they had a much better experience. I use Chrome and Safari and have no trouble at all with ads getting in the way when I access my website. Perhaps your issue is a similar one? Oh and occasionally as with all website ads, a bad and annoying one can slip through. It is possible for you to report them. There should be a little report’ button that you can click on. It take a second and will enable the people at my ad network to trace it and get rid of it. Hope that helps!