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In our culture (Szeklerland) potato is used for meat garnish, and normally I will not eat potato as a vegetarian. But I have 1 kg now and want to process them in an effective way to prevent significant change in the number of nutrients and to facilitate digestion (because based on my previous experiences I find eating potato strains my stomach).

What can be the best practice to make potato easier to digest and more enjoyable?

A raw potato is 79% water, 17% carbohydrates (88% is starch), 2% protein, and contains negligible fat (see table). In a 100-gram (3 1⁄2-ounce) portion, raw potato provides 322 kilojoules (77 kilocalories) of food energy and is a rich source of vitamin B6 and vitamin C (23% and 24% of the Daily Value, respectively), with no other vitamins or minerals insignificant amount (see table). The potato is rarely eaten raw because raw potato starch is poorly digested by humans. When a potato is baked, its contents of vitamin B6 and vitamin C decline notably, while there is little significant change in the number of other nutrients. Potato - Wikipedia

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    maybe you can try Indian recipes. We too eat potatoes with mutton, chicken and pork but also solely.
    – Severus Snape
    Sep 22, 2020 at 14:27
  • boiled and mashed potato is tasty, prepared with milk (dairy or vegan) and butter or margarine ..... also, boiled, cooled and cut up to make potato salad
    – jsotola
    Oct 21, 2020 at 21:41
  • one thing has crossed my mind today ... about the potatos that caused digestion problem for you, were they by chance green or sprouted?
    – jsotola
    Oct 30, 2020 at 3:04

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I would not recommend eating raw potato. The problems of doing so are discussed in this question. One answer does state that juicing raw potato would reduce the problem of high resistant starch content, but I don't think raw potato juice would satisfy the "enjoyable" requirement, despite the obvious subjectivity there...

For better digestion, you want to reduce the resistant starch. Cooking (especially in water) destroys resistant starch, but it re-forms to some extent after cooking and cooling potato (as with pasta - I think that's why you're supposed to eat pasta as soon as possible after cooking, because it hardens due to the resistant starch re-formation) so eating cooked potato before it cools down would help. Soaking potato in water before cooking removes some of the starch (this also makes it easier to pan fry the potato as it does not stick as much). Boiling potato and discarding the cooking water removes even more starch.

Cooking foods pretty much eliminates the vitamin C, which is destroyed at around 45 degrees Celsius. It would be easier to get vitamin C from other sources such as raw capsicum and other salad veg, and fruits like strawberry, kiwi, pineapple and citrus. Vitamin B6, also largely destroyed by heating, can be obtained from bananas, chocolate and some nuts like pistachio. It's also commonly added to fortified cereals and sometimes nondairy milk.

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  • thank you. I definitely don't want to eat raw potato :) "eating cooked potato before it cools down" it's a great tip, thank you. And I remember now, in my childhood we were using butter+salt with potato fried in the oven.
    – eapo
    Sep 16, 2020 at 2:21
  • @eapo that's how my mum preferred to give us potato as kids too :)
    – Zanna ♦
    Sep 16, 2020 at 3:58
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You can find a LOT of meatless recipies with potatoes from many parts of the world... including central/eastern Europe (I'm Czech, hi).

Just a few as example:

A very simple yet popular dish is new potatoes, boiled in skin, with cream cheese or sour cream and possibly fresh herbs of your choice.

Potatoes (boiled, mashed, baked...) make a nice side dish to vegetable or mushroom courses too, not just meat ones.

You can also combine them with whatever you like in a casserole.

And then there are of course the more complex recipies, such as lokše (Wikipedia tells me it's loksa for you if you speak Hungarian), bramborák (tócsni) or halušky (nokedli) which are all meat-optional, and I don't know about your region, but over here we even have sweet dishes made with potatoes, such as one variant of fruit-filled dumplings, or škubánky (didn't find a translation, sorry)...

If you want to preserve nutrients as much as possible, my bet would be on boiling your potatoes in skin, that seems like the gentlest option.

Conversely, if you find potatoes hard to digest, I'd think you should avoid unpeeled potatoes. (These two things aren't mutually exclusive: boiling potatoes in skin and then peeling them is a very good way to yummy boiled potatoes.) Make sure they aren't undercooked, too. And see what your body tells you; it's entirely possible that you should limit your potato intake because of some quirk of your digestive system, and I'm definitely not qualified to help you with that.

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There are lots of ways of cooking potatoes if you don't want it just fried(as it is pretty greedy food and you've said you have some problems with it). I think one of the best optimal variant is jacket potatoes on grill. It's one of my favorite way of cooking potato. First of all, you may add any veggies inside, secondly, it's so soft and has very delicate taste.

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I usually didn't enjoy potatoes but lately I've been cooking them like this:

  • Chop all your potatoes really finely.
  • Put them a non stick pan with a tiny bit of oil for flavor (optional, given the non stick)
  • Cook them at low heat with a lid on so they cook in their own water.
  • Leave them 10 or 20 minutes until they are tender
  • After that you can optionally turn the heat to max so they roast a bit
  • Last, but not least add seasoning: some salt, pepper, oregano, and chili powder if you like.
  • Enjoy!
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