Oven Cheese Fries
My family loves oven fries. They are really great with a sandwich or burger and make any meal kid-friendly.
I know a lot of people would question whether or not making fries from scratch is really worth the effort. After all, you can get a bag of frozen fries for a couple of bucks in every grocery store. Not only are home fries way better tasting, but they are also a lot healthier and cheaper.
Well, sometimes I like to make my oven fries over-the-top good. Leave it to Emeril to “kick them up a notch” in his children’s cookbook, There’s a Chef in my Kitchen. He turned the classic oven fries into Oven Crispy Cheese Fries. And they are so good.
I don’t bother to follow the recipe exactly, the idea is brilliant and although they certainly aren’t low-fat, they aren’t deep fried so they are a tad healthier. And they are cheesy, but not greasy. Gotta love that.
Emeril coats his oven fries in egg whites before baking, something most recipes don’t do. And it does produce really crispy fries. If you prefer a less crispy fry you might want to make a more traditional recipe like this one I posted few months ago. Whatever you choose, oven fries coated in cheese and green onions are unbelievably good. We have even topped them with chili for a nice dish of chili-cheese fries. Yummy.
We prefer our potatoes peeled before slicing into fries, but you could just scrub the potatoes really well.
Cheese Fries
If you add chili, this can be a main dish!
- 2 tsp canola or vegetable oil
- about 1 1/2 pounds baking potatoes (that’s about 2 really large potatoes or 4 smaller ones) peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch slices
- 1 large egg white
- 2 tsp of seasoning salt like Emeril’s Baby Bam
- 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar or colby-jack cheese
- 2 scallions thinly sliced
- Position oven rack to center position and preheat oven to 425 or 400 on convection.
- Grease a nonstick baking sheet with the oil
- Pat the potatoes dry.
- In a medium bowl lightly whisk the egg whites with a fork. Add potatoes and toss to coat evenly. Remove the potatoes with a slotted spoon and place on the baking sheet in an even layer. Bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove potatoes from oven and sprinkle with half of the seasoning. With a spatula flip potatoes and sprinkle with remaining seasoning.
- Return to oven and continue baking for 20 minutes or until golden and crispy.
- Remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese and scallions. Return to oven for about 3 minutes or until cheese is melted.
- Serve immediately.
















