AKA LRPs – Microwave Little Red Potatoes!
Uncle Steve’s LRPs (Microwave Little Red Potatoes – with garlic, butter, and chives!) … a quick and easy side dish recipe that won’t disappoint!

Spring is coming and I want to cook outside! Every. Single. Day. Unfortunately, it’s cold and rainy (or snowy) this time of year. Fortunately, I have some easy and tasty recipes, like these Little Red Potatoes, for indoor cooking. I especially love recipes that don’t heat up the house on a hot day. My kitchen gets uncomfortably HOT, so I do as little indoor cooking as I can when it’s warm out. This is a recipe memory from my teenage days, learned from a family friend.
Recently, I was in a rut trying to think of a rainy-day recipe and remembered Uncle Steve’s LRPs. These potatoes are buttery, chivey, garlicky, and easily prepared in the microwave! They resemble smashed potatoes, but cooked in the microwave, not steamed, boiled, or roasted!

Little Red Potatoes
We always have little red potatoes in the house. I also plant them in potato grow bags every year. They are super easy to grow! I buy and allow little red potatoes to get sprouty and plant them in the spring! I chop them up and plant sprouty pieces in a potato bag or large pot in a few inches of soil. When the plants pop up several inches, I add several more inches of dirt and a few more baby sprouty potato pieces. After about three soil/potato additions, in a few weeks, the bag is pretty much full. If you get the bags that have open flaps at the bottom for harvesting, you can harvest the early potatoes while the potatoes on top are still growing. This year I’m going to grow sweet potatoes too!

I reserve my homegrown potatoes for roasting but store-bought is perfect for Microwave Little Red Potatoes /aka Uncle Steve’s LRP’s!

LRP’s
LRPs are simply little red potatoes microwaved with a good amount of butter, chives, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic. Uncle Steve used a lot more butter than I do, you can add as much as you’d like!
Jump to RecipeSome More Rainy Day Recipes
- Instant Pot Spinach and Meatballs use frozen meatballs and frozen spinach for a quick weeknight meal of meatballs simmered in tomatoes with onions and garlic.
- Quick microwaved Asparagus is perfect for a rainy day. So much easier than oven-roasting and tastier than frozen asparagus.
- Jigg’s Dinner isn’t just for St. Patrick’s Day. It takes a special grocery list of corned beef and root veggies, but it’s a great crock pot or even Instant Pot meal. Set it and forget it!
- Although I have to heat up a skillet, it doesn’t heat up my kitchen too much when I make Fried rice. It’s a great rainy-day recipe and a great way to clean out your produce drawer! I use precooked Veetee rice. The precooked rice is perfect for fried rice!
- Tuna Cakes or Salmon Cakes are also great on a rainy day. I cook the salmon cakes in red palm oil to make them extra salmony colored!
- Sriracha Sesame Sugar Snap Peas are quick and easy. Just sear them up in a super hot cast iron skillet!
What’s your favorite rainy-day recipe? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
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Microwave Little Red Potatoes – AKA LRPs
Equipment
- microwavable casserole with lid I love to use Pyrex!
- knife
- oven mitts
Ingredients
- 24 oz baby potatoes Washed, cut in half or quartered
- 2 tbsp water
- 2½ tbsp unsalted butter *For a slightly healthier version, substitute half the butter with olive oil. If you have salted butter, reduce salt below.
- ⅛ tsp salt If omitting the salt, add a pinch more garlic and chives, and if using salted butter, start with a small amount of salt.
- ¼ tsp pepper
- ¼ tsp Lawry's coarse ground garlic powder with parsley *Substitute with granulated onion powder, or a clove of minced garlic.
- 1½ tbsp dried chives Optional, or substitute with 2 tbsp fresh chopped chives, or more!
Instructions
- Wash and cut potatoes and add to your microwavable casserole.
- Add water, salt, pepper and 1 tbsp butter and stir.
- Cover and microwave on high for four minutes.
- Using an oven mitt, be very careful of the steam, remove the lid and stir well.
- Continue microwaving covered and stirring (be very careful of the steam and use oven mitts!) in 3-4 minute increments until the potatoes are soft and tender about 12-15 minutes. The potatoes should start to look like smashed potatoes.
- (Be very careful of the steam and use oven mitts!) Add the remaining butter, garlic powder, chives and stir. Microwave one more minute. Stir and let sit for a couple minutes to cool.
- Adjust seasoning to your liking and serve hot! I recommend extra chives!