If you've never had twice baked potatoes before, you are in for a treat! Growing up, my mom would make these all the time and it was something I really looked forward to. The most common time for her to make them was for New Year's. It used to be an annual tradition to have a New Year's Eve party at our house. Each year she would come up with the menu which would usually involve tons of delicious items, but almost always we had twice baked potatoes as one of our sides. Usually there were anywhere from 15 to 25 people attending these parties which was typically their good friends and all of the kids (that was me!). Hard to believe it's really been that long ago! This dish is great for larger parties or for just yourself because it's super easy to double or triple the recipe to your group size AND you can make them ahead of time and just heat them up the day of. You know me, I am always in for easier ways to do things! While these are not the exact recipe my mother used I am sure, they are SO GOOD and are going to keep you coming back for more. So do yourself a favor, and make extra! Fun fact: I used to reheat these for breakfast when I was growing up. I really could eat them all times of the day! With the holidays coming up, this is an easy side dish to do with little hassle for a group of people! Alec and I enjoyed these a few days ago for our anniversary dinner. I hope you enjoy these with family and friends as I have over the years. :)
Serves: 4
Ingredients:
2 baking potatoes
1 onion, chopped
1 cup canned mushrooms, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
4 thick cut pieces of bacon, cooked crispy and chopped
1/2-1 cup milk of choice
1/4 cup sour cream, more if needed for consistency
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3 green onions, chopped
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wrap potatoes in foil and bake for 1 hour until soft. You can opt to cook these slower at a lower temp but this would require more time.
While your potatoes are cooking, prepare the ingredients for the stuffing. Use 1-2 remaining tbsp of bacon grease from the bacon or EVOO and heat over medium heat. Add the onion, mushroom and garlic to the pan and mix well. After about a minute, add 2 tbsp butter, 1 tsp salt and cracked black pepper. Sauté for about 5 more minutes until tender and fragrant and then set aside.
Once finished, remove from oven. Leave the oven on and turn it down to 350. *Carefully* slice these in half lengthwise and then spoon out the centers into a bowl. This is the hardest part of these because they are going to be very hot and you have to make sure you do not break the outer skin. The best way to do this is to leave an outside lining of potato around the entire half to make sure it is thicker and not too thin. They tend to break more when they are thinner. Do these for all halves until you have a bowl of potato from the center. Place the halve linings on a pan or in a baking dish.
In the bowl with your potato, add the last 2 tbsp butter, 1/2 cup milk, and sour cream. Use a hand mixer (if you have one) or a potato masher to mix until well combined and mostly mashed. If you need additional milk, add a little more until desired consistency of creaminess is achieved. Then add in half of the cheese, half of the bacon, the mixture from the pan, 1-2 tsp salt (to taste) and 4-5 cranks black pepper. Fold all of this into the mashed potatoes until well incorporated.
Now make the potatoes! Spoon the stuffing into each potato shell evenly until it is all gone. It is completely normal for each potato to have a heaping amount of filling in it, it will usually never be flat across the top. Once finished stuffing, top with remaining bacon crumbles and cheese. Place back in the oven for around 20 minutes or so. The cheese on top should be melted and the centers should be warm when they are ready.
Remove from oven and garnish with green onion. Serve them up & enjoy!
Helpful hints:
As stated above, be careful when scooping out the potato from the shell. These tend to break easily- one tip you can do is to make extra potatoes to make sure you have enough that aren't ripped. This is especially helpful if you are making them for a big crowd!
One of the reasons this dish is great for big crowds- you can bake and assemble these the day before and then refrigerate until you are ready to bake for the second time. This makes day-of preparations absolutely minimal with a great result! I definitely recommend this if you are going to be short on time the day that you need these. Plus, making 4 versus 12 is really just multiplying the recipe. So I love this recipe for a big crew!
On an additional note, you can also prep the filling ingredients (bacon, onion, mushroom) the night before so that it is all ready to add to the potatoes and this will cut out a step as well.
Wishing you many memories made while eating this delicious side! I know I have some great memories of enjoying these.
Until next time, Cheers! Magen Check
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