Helpful Hints from joeeze: How to store potatoes to prevent them from sprouting

I wish I'd known this a month ago: I bought some baking potatoes to nuke now that I've got a nifty microwave pouch that bakes them in 4 minutes.

I put them in a kitchen cabinet with a door, figuring keeping them in the dark would prevent them from sprouting and going bad: bad idea.

When I opened the cabinet a couple weeks later to grab a potato, I saw all of them had sprouted, and not just a little.

From The Coolest:

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Every fall it's the same story. You buy a big bag of potatoes, or bring in the last of the garden harvest, and three weeks later half of them have pale little shoots growing out of the eyes  and have gone soft to the touch.

A potato is a living thing. Stored in the wrong conditions, it does exactly what it's built to do: it wakes up and starts to grow.

Sprouting is triggered by warmth and light. In a warm kitchen, near the stove or a sunny counter, a potato reads the signal that spring has come and starts sending out shoots. Light also turns the skin green, a sign of solanine, a natural compound that tastes bitter and can cause stomach upsets in larger amounts. Green patches and sprouts should always be cut away generously before cooking; a potato that's very green or shriveled belongs in the compost.

Here's the best way to store potatoes:

• Keep them cool: ideally 45-50°F. A cool pantry, basement, garage that doesn't freeze, or unheated closet works well.

• Keep them dark: a paper bag, a cardboard box, or a basket with a cloth over it.

• Let them breathe: never store them sealed in plastic, which traps moisture and invites rot.

• Don't wash them before storing: dirt protects the skin; moisture speeds decay.

• Keep them away from onions: stored side by side, the two speed each other's spoiling.

One more thing: Grandmother's famous trick was to tuck an apple in with the potatoes. There was a logic behind it: apples give off ethylene, a natural plant gas, and continuous exposure to ethylene is used commercially in some countries to hold back sprouting in stored potatoes.

One apple in a bag won't match industrial-grade storage, and results at home vary, but it's cheap, harmless, and worth trying. Replace the apple when it starts to wrinkle.

What About The Fridge?

Here the advice has shifted. For years, the rule was never refrigerate raw potatoes, because cold turns some of their starch into sugar, which changes the taste and makes them brown faster when fried. In 2023, the U.K.'s Food Standards Agency updated its guidance to say the fridge is fine. Many U.S. guides still prefer a cool, dark pantry for best flavor. If your kitchen is warm and you have no cool spot, the fridge beats a sprouting potato.

Summarizing: Cool, dark, dry, away from onions, with an apple for company.