Air Fryer Mexican Potatoes

A slightly healthier, lower fat spin on baked or air fried Mexican potatoes. These potatoes are a great side dish or incorporated into ground beef, chorizo, and other proteins. Or they’re perfect served on their own with a dollop of fat free Greek yogurt or sour cream. It’s hard to go wrong with potatoes, right?

How to Make Mexican Potatoes in an Air Fryer

All you’ll need is a pound of baby gold potatoes, olive oil, and a handful of Mexican herbs and spices. I’ll run through ingredient notes below, and you’ll find a recipe card at the bottom of the post. If you skip down and have a recipe question, recheck the post and leave a comment if I didn’t cover it there. I’m happy to help!

Step 1: Wash and quarter 1 pound of baby gold potatoes before tossing with olive oil. 

I doubt you have trouble finding baby gold potatoes but if you do, larger Yukon gold potatoes would work fine as a substitute. You could also use baby red potatoes or a blend of gold and red like in my rosemary parmesan potatoes recipe. And worst case, plain ol’ russet potatoes would probably work just fine.

Side note: If you wanted to learn more about different types of potatoes, check out this potatoes 101 guide from Serious Eats.

Can I use this recipe to make Mexican sweet potatoes?

I tested the recipe with diced sweet potatoes (skin on) and it worked great. Sweet potatoes can take on a bit more spice in my opinion. So you could probably add a bit more chili powder if you wanted.

Step 2: Air fry the potatoes for 10-12 minutes at 400ºF.

I use a 6.5qt Ninja Foodi for air frying. Every air fryer is different so take a look at the photo below to get an idea of what your potatoes should look like after the 10-12 minutes. You want some browning around the edges but not completely fried potatoes. If you notice too much browning after the first stint in the air fryer, reduce the cook time on the second round.

I’ve also included notes in the recipe card for baking these Mexican potatoes in the oven.

Step 3: Transfer the fried potatoes back to the bowl and toss with chili powder, dried oregano, salt, cinnamon, coriander, and garlic powder. 

I consumed more potatoes than I’d like to admit testing different seasoning blends, but it was worth it. After testing blends with things like cumin, granulated onion, and others, I landed on this blend that lets the cinnamon and ground coriander really pop.

I’m guessing you probably have everything in your spice cabinet except for the ground coriander. I’d urge you to pick some up before making these Mexican potatoes. It’s a small amount, but you can really taste it! Plus, you could use it for recipes like my Mexican shredded chicken thighs and sweet and spicy pressure cooker pulled chicken.

Spice level note: The 1/2 teaspoon of chipotle chili powder doesn’t provide a ton of spice, but I’ve been called spice deaf before. If you’re spice sensitive, you could reduce the chili powder or use something like sweet or smoked paprika instead.

Step 4: Air fry an additional 8-10 minutes at 400ºF until the Mexican potatoes are nice and crispy.

You can’t really mess up here unless you burn them. Start on the lower end and extend the time in the air fryer as needed. The key to perfect air fryer potatoes in my experience is checking on them early and often!

Once you get ’em air fried, you’re done. You could toss the potatoes with cilantro straight in the air fryer basket before serving, if you wanted to.

Serving Your Mexican Style Potatoes

The first recipes that came to mind were my Mexican Smoked Chicken Breast, air fryer enchiladas, and copycat Torchy’s Brushfire tacos.

You could also swap the Mexican potatoes for rice in my Tex-Mex Meal Prep Bowls, tater tots for my Texas chili cheese tots, or plug them into my Chipotle Sweet Potato Nachos.

And it’s also worth mentioning they make a great snack or appetizer on their own. I had a serving or two or three with a little fat free Greek yogurt and was as happy as clam. And if you dig these, I think you’ll want to check out my air fried Greek lemon potatoes next!

All right, if you have any recipe questions I didn’t cover, drop a comment at the bottom of post. And even if you don’t have a question, I’d appreciate it if you came back to let me know your thoughts on these Mexican potatoes in a review. Onward!