When I think of the perfect diner breakfast, over-easy eggs and hash browns are always involved. Rarely is a diner who makes hash browns (I usually see home fries), and even rarer are they made the way I like them best: super crispy on the outside. I get it: diner service is hectic, and the potatoes come out fast. So when I make them at home, I make sure they’re nice and crispy when I eat my breakfast potatoes. My trick for the crispiest hash brown outside? Nothing less than cornstarch.

Starches have phenomenal crunchy properties. That’s why potatoes are so good for fries: they’re loaded with starches, specifically amylose and amylopectin. (Here’s some information about amylose and amylopectin.) Essentially, these two starch molecules form new bonds around 350°F, and those brittle bonds are what give us that crunchy feeling when we eat them. Cornstarch and potato starch have more of these molecules than flour.

Hash browns are of course made from potatoes, and potatoes have their own starches. Technically, you can keep a potato burger simple and just mash grated potatoes in a pan with oil. You’ll get a decent hash brown. But I like to add the natural starches of the potato. By dusting the burgers with cornstarch, you effectively create a wall of crunch that you can break open. It’s delicious. It’s satisfying. It’s my ideal hash brown.

Tramontina 8-inch frying pan