(Potato Grower Editor – When we first came across this story, we thought it was a gag story, so to speak. But, it turns out it is serious. Seriously, you can not make these things up.)
For some families, dishwashers — a staple of most American kitchens — are used solely as drying racks. On the other end of the spectrum, according to Consumer Reports, some dishwasher owners decide to take the efficiency of the machine to a strange extreme and use it to clean an array of bizarre objects: bras, computer keyboards, salmon wrapped in foil (this approach is to cook rather than cleanse), and even potatoes. Yes, potatoes.
If you've ever had to scrub a 5-pound bag of potatoes and hand-remove the dirt encasing each one, you'll be well familiar with how arduous and tedious the task is. Using your dishwasher's power to quickly clean all of your potatoes at once may seem like a quick and easy solution, but popping potatoes — of any variety, from russet to sweet to fingerling potatoes — into a dishwasher for a quick clean is not such a hot idea.
An On-Trend Recommendation Gone Wrong
A quick Google search of "can you wash your potatoes in the dishwasher" brings up a variety of kitchen hack articles telling you that you can indeed wash your tubers in the large kitchen appliance, but that advice should be taken with a grain of salt.
According to the Idaho Potato Commission, putting your potatoes in the dishwasher is outdated advice. Even if you don't put soap into your dishwasher, residual soap can get underneath the potato skins (and into your taste buds) during a cycle, which ironically makes your potatoes even dirtier than they were to start with, not to mention the unpleasant soapy flavor tinge. The dirt from the potatoes could also clog your dishwashing machine, and the waste of water — unless you're prepping potatoes for an army — would be a shame.
The takeaway? Please don't use your dishwasher to clean your potatoes. A better life hack: use your dishwasher as a drying rack. Or if you really must clean potatoes, give 'em a good vigorous scrub by hand to get a brief workout in while you food prep.