How to Peel a Potato Without a Peeler

Whether you’re making baked or mashed, potatoes show up on most peoples’ holiday menus. Scalloped potatoes or potato salad might be a delicious addition to your holiday meal, but these dishes are not the quickest to prepare. Have you thought about streamlining your potato preparation with peeling tricks?

How to peel a potato without a peeler

According to Country Living, you don’t even need a potato peeler to get rid of those pesky potato skins. In fact, you don’t need any fancy tools for this trick. Here’s how to peel a potato without a peeler by boiling the potato and then giving it an ice bath:

Method 1: Boiling and Giving an Ice Bath

If you’re going to be boiling your potato to cook it, here’s how to peel a potato without a peeler:

1. Scrub your unpeeled potato.
2. Place your raw potato inside a pot with cold water.
3. Cover with a lid.
4. Bring to a boil.
5. Meanwhile, prepare an ice bath.
   • Combine cold water and ice in a bowl.
   • Make sure that you’re using a large enough bowl if you’re boiling more than one potato at a time.
6. Simmer your potato until it’s tender enough to pierce with a fork – the skin of your potato should also be soft and wrinkly.
7. Remove potato from boiling water and submerge into ice water.
8. Let the boiled potato sit for 10-20 seconds, then remove from cold water.
9. Peel away the potato skin with your fingers or a paper towel.

The boiling potatoes method is both quick and efficient because it removes all pieces of skin from the potato, which you can’t do when you’re peeling the potato with a traditional peeler – even when you use an apple peeler.

If you’re not going to be boiling your potato to cook it, here’s how to peel a potato without a peeler:

Method 2: Using a Paring Knife

1. Wash your potato.
2. Stand the potato on its bottom, gripping the potato near the top with your non-dominant hand.
   • You can cut off the bottom of the potato to help it stand up if you need to.
3. Take your paring knife (or any small sharp knife) and, starting from the top, make one straight cut down the potato to remove the skin. Make sure that you’re removing as little of the potato underneath as possible.
4. Rotate the potato, repeating step 3 as you do until the potato is completely peeled.
5. Touch up any missed spots and remove any bad spots.

This method is excellent for any other potato dish you might be making if you’re not mashing or boiling your potatoes. Or, if you don’t have a pot big enough to boil all of your potatoes and then give them all an ice bath.

Health Benefits of Potato Peels

Potato skins are full of iron, which helps support red blood cell production. Potato skins are also a great source of vitamin B3, which helps your cells process nutrients into usable fuel. Additionally, vitamin B3 helps your cells recover from physiological stress.

Potato skins are also a great source of fiber.

So, while you might want to remove all the potato skin before cooking your potatoes, leaving behind a little bit of skin has some health benefits.

Conclusion

It is important to know how to peel a potato without a peeler because something could happen to your potato peeler, and you could be without it. The most efficient method is boiling the potato and then giving it an ice bath.

This method of peeling potatoes is best if you’re already planning on boiling your potatoes, to begin with. If you aren’t, then using a paring knife is another great option. The method you choose will depend on how comfortable you use a knife to peel a potato and if you have a big enough bowl to give your potatoes an ice bath.