Cheese & Bacon Loaded Potatoes
My “Cheese & Bacon Loaded Potatoes” recipe is a super duper easy one, but produces insanely delicious results. Crispy bacon, soft cheesy potato and a secret hit of BBQ sauce hidden at the bottom.
There is nothing quite like it.
Its actually making me hungry just thinking about them, I could easily scoff my way through 5 or 6 right now… and its 7.36am.
What should I eat with my Cheese & Bacon Loaded Potatoes?!
Here’s a couple of ideas for you:
- Summery lunch – with a side salad.
- Side dish – perfect with some sour cream. Perfect side dish to basically any meals!
- Replacement for chips – this dish is the perfect alternative to whatever you eat chips with. For example, we make up a naked burger bowl (bunless burger, salad, tomatoes, cheese, gherkins, …the works) and then just add this on the side.
- With a BBQ! Perfect dish to whip out with your BBQ. You can make these in advance and either warm up on the BBQ or in the oven.
What dairy free cheese would you recommend?
My two favs are Violife cheddar style cheese and Asda’s own mozzarella. Both are amazingggg for this one!!!
*Also wanted to tell you my cheats way of making jacket potatoes – Mccains frozen ready baked jacket potatoes are gluten free and honestly seriously good!! You can microwave them or stick in the oven. Slightly lazy I know, but sometimes needs must!
Cheese & Bacon Loaded Potatoes (with hidden BBQ sauce!)
Ingredients
- 2 baking potatoes - you can buy "baking potatoes" from the supermarket but if they haven't got any, get Maris Piper or King Edward
- 3 pieces of bacon
- 8 tsp BBQ sauce - check yours is gluten free
- Lots of cheese!!!! - I'd recommend about 40g-60g depending on how cheesy you'd like it
Seasoning
- Sprinkle of salt, pepper, mixed herbs, spring onion - whatever takes your fancy!
- Generous drizzle of olive/sunflower oil
Instructions
- Heat your oven to 200oC (fan).
- Place the potatoes on a baking tray. Prick the skin (stab small holes over the potato) with a knife (stops them exploding!). Rub them with a small amount of oil over your potatoes. Sprinkle them with salt.
- When the oven is up to temperature, place the potatoes in the oven. >3 options for timings!1) My usual way: 200C for 1hr 152) Slow cook (extra crispy skin): 180C for 1hr 45mins – some of the bigger potatoes might want 2hrs+3) On the hurry up (you won't get a perfectly crispy skin and soft inside but it'll do just fine!): Place onto a plate and into the microwave for 5 mins to soften it up. Place into the oven at 180oC for 35-40 mins.
- Give the potato a little squeeze. If it feels really soft inside and the skin is nice and crispy, remove the potatoes from the oven. If skin isn't quite crispy yet, stick them back in the oven for another 10 mins and repeat.
- Cut the potatoes in half.
- Scoop out the middles and place the mash into a bowl.
- Squeeze about 2 tsp of bbq sauce into the bottom of each potato skin.
- Grate your cheese into the bowl with the mash.
- Fry your bacon until crispyTop tip: for super crispy bacon, heat up the pan to a high temperature then place the bacon into it. Do not touch the bacon for at least 15 second and the underside will have gone nice and cripsy!
- Chop the bacon into small pieces and add to the bowl.
- Season the bowl – salt, pepper, sprinkle of mixed herbs, whatever takes your fancy!
- Scoop the cheesy bacon mash back into the potato skins.
- Top with a little more grated cheese if you'd like to. Here's what mine look like at this stage:
- Place back into the oven for 10 mins, or until the cheese has melted and is looking delish!!
Want some more cheesy dinner ideas? How about my Hunters Chicken Pasta Bake ? Or maybe my Chilli Mac and Cheese? Or Creamy, Dairy Free Carbonara?
