Loaded Baked Potato
A variant of Baked Potato — Sour cream, chives, cheddar and cooked bacon on the reference oven-baked potato.
Contains dairy
Restrictions
ContainsdairyIt is in an ingredient you cannot leave out.
Diets
No alcohol
Worked out from the ingredient list. It knows nothing about brands, shared equipment or cross contamination, and it is not a certification — if you have an allergy, you still have to read the label.
Ingredients
Servings:
| 2 unit | potato (russet or other floury, similar sizes) |
| 2 tsp | vegetable oil |
| 1 tsp | salt (coarse) |
| 2 tbsp | butter (to serve) |
| ⅓ cup | cream (sour) |
| 2 tbsp | chives (chopped) |
| ½ cup | cheese (cheddar, grated) |
| 2 slice | bacon (cooked and crumbled) |
Optional
Not counted above. The dish works without them.
| ¼ tsp | black pepper (ground) |
Steps
- peel5 minscrubbed under cold water, then dried completelypotatoes scrubbed and dried thoroughly — skin on. Dry matters as much here as on a steak: a wet skin holds at 100°C until the water has gone, and that is time not spent crisping
- score2 minpricked 6-8 times with a fork, all overthe skin pierced several times. Steam builds inside a sealed potato as its water turns to vapour, and while a burst potato is rare it is spectacular and entirely avoidable
- season2 minoil rubbed over the whole skin, then coarse salt+ oil + salt rubbed in. Oil is a heat-transfer medium and helps the skin reach crisping temperature; the coarse salt also draws a little surface moisture out, which is working in the same direction
- bake55 min220°C, directly on the oven rack, NOT wrapped, until 96-99°C internaluntil a skewer meets no resistance at the centre and the skin is dry and papery. Straight on the rack so hot air circulates all round — a potato sitting on a tray has one soft face. Never foil: it traps steam against the skin and produces a boiled potato in a bag
- rest4 mincut open immediately, squeezed from the ends, then left a momentsplit lengthways the moment it comes out and pressed from both ends so the interior opens and steams. Letting that steam escape is what makes the inside fluffy rather than dense — a potato left whole reabsorbs its own moisture within minutes (+ butter, + sour cream, + cheese, + chives, + bacon, + pepper) Top the opened potatoes with the listed sour cream, chives, cheddar and already-cooked crumbled bacon, divided evenly. The bacon must be cooked before it is used as a topping.