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Cosy season is just around the corner, which means it’s the season of hearty, comforting meals and warming Sunday roast dinners once again. No roast is complete without a pile of crispy, crunchy roast potatoes.

However, if seasoning your potatoes with salt, pepper or herbs isn’t quite cutting the mustard, writer and dietician Christina Manian, RDN, shared a surprise ingredient that can add bags of flavour, heat and sweetness. Instead of reaching for the spice rack, Christina suggests dousing your roast potatoes in hot honey.

Hot honey has been having a moment for the past few years, and it doesn’t seem to be going out of fashion any time soon. Christina argues that hot honey is one of the easiest upgrades you can give a spud, especially if it needs a wow factor that salt and pepper just can’t give.

She wrote for Simply Recipes: “While a simple seasoning of salt and pepper is more than enough, I love dressing them up, too. Lately, my favourite one-ingredient upgrade is something that is likely in your pantry: hot honey.”

How to cook roast potatoes in hot honey

Hot honey can help add sweetness to your potatoes, as well as a welcome burst of spice. Not only does it help enhance the roast potatoes’ flavour, but it can also help them caramelise and crisp while in the oven.

There are two ways you can use hot honey for roast potatoes. The first, Christina explained, uses large diced potatoes that are still raw.

Add these to a baking tray, before covering them with a mix of salt, pepper, olive oil and hot honey. Toss the potatoes with the mixture to ensure they are evenly coated.

Roast the potatoes at 425℉ (approximately 220℃) for around 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown and crispy.

Christina’s other method adds an extra step of parboling the potatoes before they hit the oven. It doesn’t matter which method you prefer.

However, Christina doesn’t compromise on the hot honey. When the spuds hit the baking tray, add one to two tablespoons of hot honey.

If you’re looking to add flavour and help brown the potatoes, but don’t want the added element of spice, Christina said that normal honey also works.

She wrote: “While hot honey brings incredible flavour, regular honey works as well. It still brings all the browning benefits of hot honey but without the heat—a great fit for those who are sensitive to spice.”

To give the potatoes even more flavour, Christina recommended adding an extra drizzle of hot honey to them once they come out of the oven. This can give the potatoes an “extra punch” of flavour.

She said: “More often than not, I can’t help but add a second drizzle of hot honey to my crispy potatoes once they come out of the oven for an extra punch of stickiness, spice, and sweetness, since some of the flavour fades in the oven.”