I never have been the biggest fan of French fries. I’m not sure why, but I simply don’t understand the seemingly universal appeal. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll eat them. But if there is an alternative, I’ll usually choose something else. My four-year-old absolutely L-O-V-E-S those fries—of course. But I just can’t quite make myself cook French fries. The compromise? Mommy makes some alternate options—either sweet potato fries or roasted potatoes. Roasted potatoes are the favorite, since we can make them crispy like fries, and they taste good with ketchup—my daughter’s criteria, not mine. They are much better than greasy fries for you!

At a family get together this weekend, I decided that ketchup was okay for the little ones, but this grown up wanted a little something different. I went with a garlicky sour cream dip—and let me say, it was heaven. Don’t be intimidated by the whole head of garlic—roasting it mellows the flavor out. As we were joking around about it, we noted that a good way to improve fat (the sour cream) was to add lots of garlic!



I did use low-fat sour cream—but if you wanted to make this really rich you could go the full fat route.

Rosemary Roasted Potatoes with Garlicky Sour Cream Dip

Potatoes Ingredients:

4-5 pounds of red potatoes

Enough oil to coat the potatoes

2-3 stems of fresh rosemary

Kosher salt, to taste

Dip Ingredients:

1 head of garlic

8 oz. light sour cream

1/2 tsp. seasoning blend of your choice—I used McCormick’s Rotisserie Chicken Blend

Preheat oven to 400. Dice potatoes into about 1 inch pieces. Strip the rosemary leaves off the stem and mix with potato pieces. Toss with oil. Spread out on a baking sheet, and sprinkle with salt. Take head of garlic and cut the top off. Wrap with foil, if you desire (I skipped this and the garlic paper got a little bit burnt). Put the potatoes in the oven. Place the garlic on the rack next to the baking pan. Bake the potatoes for 30 minutes, or until done.


Take the garlic out after 10 minutes in the oven and squeeze the cloves out onto a cutting board. Finely mince the garlic. Mix garlic, sour cream, and seasoning. Serve potatoes with a dollop of the dip.

We found that the dip went really well with the homemade hushpuppies my brother-in-law made, too—I’m sure we could find many other uses for this dip—but there weren’t any leftovers with which to experiment!

This recipe is gluten free as long as you check your seasoning mix.

Note: I highly recommend growing your own rosemary if you like it--I have a plant in a half barrel that only seems to get bigger each year--despite my love for recipes with rosemary.

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