Can I prepare potatoes for roasting in advance?

[headfairy]

And how much in advance can I do them?

My mum's recovering from an op, so my sister and I are divvying up Christmas lunch between us (my mum is the only one with a house big enough to have us all over), I'm doing the roast potatoes (among other things). Thing is I'm working until 11.45pm on Christmas eve so I won't be home before 1am. No doubt my children will wake me up at 5am, so I would really like to have potatoes prepped and ready to slam in the oven when I go over to Mum and Dad's at around midday. Whenever I've prepped potatoes in advance they've gone grey and horrible. Is there something I can do to avoid that? Will the potatoes be horrendous if I prepare them on Sunday evening?

I do them in advance and leave them in cold water changing the water as and when I can.

Do the same with carrots, parsnips and onions too.

They've always been fine

Same as candle, make sure put them go cold water or they will go grey

Oh, should have said I'm sure Sunday evening isn't too early. Just make sure they stay covered with the water.

This is so helpful for a novice like me - how often are you meant to change the water?

I just change it when I remember can. Maybe two/three times the day before and again the morning of The Day

I would even par boil them the day before and keep in fridge overnight, take them out so they get to room temp before roasting - then you don't even have to worry about water etc....

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4967/golden-roast-potatoes

Recipe here for parboiling/bashing ahead and freezing them. Then on the day you cook them straight from frozen (takes an hour).

My parents did this freezing method last year and it worked fine, and with parsnips too.

Oh good, thanks so much for these. I'm quite tempted to try freezing them as transporting a pan full of potatoes and water to my mum and dad's might be tricky. I'm glad to hear they don't taste any difference. My folks are a bit poncey when it comes to food and the potatoes need to be good!

I did those last year. All I would say is that I didn't think 6/7 minutes was long enough to parboil - when I shook the pan, it didn't rough the edges (and I never use flour). So I parboiled them for slightly longer yesterday, roughed up the edges, open froze them and then bagged them.

I've always found potatoes the most irritatingly time-consuming of all the lunch jobs, so I'm very pleased with this method.

I have been told to put a chunk of bread in with the potatoes and water to "soak up some of the starch" not sure how accurate this is, but my roasties were good the next day!!