Make Spanish Tortilla In Half The Time With This Potato Swap

We all love to treat ourselves to a bit of comfort food, especially on cold winter nights or days when we just feel like we need a culinary hug. Unfortunately, sometimes our favorite comfort dishes can be time-consuming or difficult to make, which may make the whole endeavor feel like too much of a hassle. That's why tips and tricks to cut down the prep time of certain dishes are always a lifesaver, and this hack for a Spanish tortilla could save you a lot of time and trouble.

For those who don't know, a Spanish tortilla — also known as a Spanish omelet, tortilla Española, or tortilla de patata (per Socarrat) — is not related to the Mexican flatbread tortillas. Rather, it is a dish more akin to an omelet or a frittata which is made, as the tortilla de patata name suggests, with eggs and potatoes. While it's an incredibly popular dish in Spain for breakfast, lunch, or as part of a tapas dinner, it can be a bit of a pain to make at home due to the amount of prep work that goes into the potatoes. The potatoes need to be peeled and cooked from raw in 2 cups of high-quality olive oil before you can even begin assembling the dish. The cooking alone can take almost half an hour and feels a bit wasteful for just one meal. So how can you avoid this step?

When you don't want to spend over an hour prepping your lunch, there is, thankfully, a very easy, convenient solution to making a fast and easy Spanish omelet: French fries. Kimchi & Beans recommends using leftover, thick-cut French fries from any restaurant for this hack, while The Takeout suggests using a bag of frozen steak fries. Either way, you save yourself a significant mess and time in the kitchen by cutting out a step and buying pre-fried potatoes.

This recipe only requires a small amount of oil to cook your omelet and sauté the commonly-added onions. If using leftover fries, simply throw them into the pan with the cooking onions — and whatever other ingredients you choose to include — and pour your eggs and other seasonings over the top. Once your omelet is mostly cooked, flip it over and finish the other side. If you are choosing to use frozen fries, cook them in the oven with a bit of olive oil until they are crisp but not over-browned. Then mix them in a bowl with the olive oil and cooked ingredients and add your eggs and fry in a skillet as normal until it is mostly cooked. The Takeout's recipe also avoids the tricky issue of flipping the omelet by advising home chefs to simply slide the nearly-finished dish into the oven to finish cooking for the last few minutes.