A medium baked potato with the skin on contains roughly 926 to 941 milligrams of potassium, making it one of the most potassium-dense whole foods you can eat. That single potato delivers about 20% of the daily value for potassium, which the FDA sets at 4,700 mg.
How Size and Skin Affect the Number
Most of the potassium data you’ll see refers to a medium potato, roughly 2¼ to 3¼ inches in diameter. At around 930 mg, that medium potato packs more than twice the potassium of a banana, which comes in at about 451 mg. A large baked potato will push well past 1,000 mg.
Whether you eat the skin matters more than most people realize. A medium baked potato with the skin delivers about 926 mg of potassium, but peel it and you drop to roughly 610 mg. That means the skin accounts for about a third of the potato’s total potassium. If you’re eating potatoes specifically for their mineral content, leave the skin on.
Baked Potato vs. Banana and Other Foods
Bananas get all the credit as a potassium food, but they’re not even close to potatoes on a per-serving basis. A medium banana has about 451 mg of potassium. A medium baked potato with skin has more than 900 mg. You’d need to eat two bananas to match a single potato.
Other high-potassium foods include avocados, spinach, and white beans, but few whole foods deliver this much potassium in a single, affordable serving. Potatoes are also naturally very low in sodium, which makes their potassium-to-sodium ratio especially favorable for blood pressure.
Why Cooking Method Matters
Baking preserves nearly all of a potato’s potassium because the mineral stays locked inside the flesh. Boiling is a different story. Potassium is water-soluble, so it leaches out into the cooking water. Double boiling, a technique sometimes recommended for people on kidney diets who need to limit potassium, can remove about 50% of the mineral.
If your goal is to get the most potassium from your potato, baking or roasting is the way to go. If you need to reduce potassium for medical reasons, peeling the potato, cutting it into small pieces, and boiling it in a large volume of water will bring the number down significantly.
What This Means for Your Daily Intake
The FDA’s daily value for potassium is 4,700 mg. The American Heart Association recommends 3,500 to 5,000 mg per day for people managing or trying to prevent high blood pressure. Most Americans fall well short of these targets. A single baked potato covers roughly a fifth of that goal in one sitting, which is a substantial contribution from a single food.
Potassium helps your body counteract the effects of sodium on blood pressure. Research on adults with elevated blood pressure found that meals containing baked or boiled potatoes reduced sodium retention more effectively than a potassium supplement alone. The combination of potassium with the other compounds naturally present in the potato appears to enhance the effect, which is one reason whole food sources tend to outperform supplements for mineral intake.
Quick Reference by Preparation
- Medium baked potato, skin on: ~926–941 mg potassium (20% daily value)
- Medium baked potato, skin removed: ~610 mg potassium (13% daily value)
- Boiled potato (double boiled): roughly half the original potassium content
- Medium banana (for comparison): ~451 mg potassium (10% daily value)