Loaded Baked Potato Skins

Loaded baked potato skins are a crowd-pleasing appetizer. Thick with potatoes, brushed with seasoned butter and baked to a perfect crisp. Topped with salty bacon, tangy sour cream, melted cheddar cheese and green onions or chives, this recipe is a winner!

You'll love these crispy, oven-baked potato skins loaded with toppings. These are customizable and kid-friendly!

Add tasting toppings including melty cheddar cheese, salty bacon, tangy sour cream and green onions or chives.

★ Why You'll Love this Recipe ★

A Crowd-pleaser

Loaded potato skins are a crowd-pleasing appetizer that perfect for any gathering. Enjoy this special treat for a holiday party, as football foods or as a tasty side dish with dinner.

Every bite of a potato skin is a delightful experience, offering both crispy texture, a soft inside and tons of flavor, making it one of the best appetizers or snacks to enjoy on any occasion.

What Sets this Recipe Apart

Potato skins are very simple to make. It may seem like you don't even need a recipe, but there are a few subtle ways you can really improve your potato skins to offer the best combination of texture and flavor.

Here's how we'll achieve potato skin perfection:

1. Lightly coating the outer skin in seasoned butter, mid-way through baking, produces a crisp crust whether you're baking these in the oven or making them in the air fryer.
2. Hollowing out the potato skins leaving a generous layer of potato in the skin. You don't want to be munching on just the skin, you want the perfect combination of skin to potato and leaving about ¼" border of potato is going to make a huge difference than scraping your skins too thin.
3. Coating the inside of the potato skin with butter, mid-way through cooking. This allows the butter to seep into the potato adding richness and seasoning the potato.
4. Seasoning. Adding a layer of seasoning along with the butter is so key. Melted butter acts as the perfect vehicle to infuse the potato skins with garlic, sea salt and parsley.

★ Ingredients You'll Need ★

Here's everything you'll need to make amazing potato skins:

• Baking Potatoes. Large, russet potatoes work best for this recipe. They have skin that will hold together when baked.
• Unsalted Butter. This allows you to customize your level of salt and also use sea salt which adds a really nice flavor beyond normal table salt. If you prefer, you can use olive oil on the outer skin and butter on the inside or use butter on both sides.
• Parsley. This breaks up the richness, adds subtle texture and flavor.
• Garlic Powder. Garlic is an overlooked seasoning with potato skins but adding it in really makes the potatoes taste amazing.
• Cheddar Cheese. Choose mild or sharp depending on your preference.
• Bacon bits. Fresh-made bacon, crumbed into bits is always going to taste better even over the real bacon bit. However, you can totally use bacon bits to save time. Or you can make your own bacon ahead of time or use leftover bacon from breakfast.
• Sour Cream. Both cool and creamy, this topping is a must as it melds all the ingredients together and adds just the right touch of tang and creaminess.
• Green onions or chives. Fresh is best! Green onions add a little bit more spice but chives add a really nice flavor. You choice or go all out and use both!

★ How to Make this Recipe ★

These potato skins are very easy to prep, just follow the steps.

Here's a look at what to do, the full recipe can be found below.

• Wash and dry potatoes. Poke to vent.
• Bake to soften potatoes.
• Cut in half.
• Scoop out the insides.
• Melt butter and combine with seasonings.
• Brush insides and outsides with butter.
• Bake to crisp and season potato skins.
• Flip then fill with cheese and bacon.
• Bake to melt cheese.
• Top with sour cream and chives or green onions.

That's it. A simple process with a few key steps that make these the absolutely BEST potato skins you will ever eat.

★ Tips & FAQs ★

Oven Bake or Air Fry

These can be made in the air fryer in smaller batches as needed to accommodate your air fryers size. Follow the recipe as written but reduce the bake time by half. Add additional time if needed. Air fryers can vary greatly by size and model.

What can I do with the potato insides?

Once you’ve scooped out the insides of the potatoes you can use them for some delicious Sour cream and chive mashed potatoes. Any other recipes that require mashed potatoes, like the topping of shepherd’s pie, would be a great use for the left-over insides as well!

Storing Leftovers

These potato skins are best enjoyed fresh out of the oven. However, you can store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Reheat by baking them at 425˚F for about 5 minutes.

These can be frozen as well for up to 2 months. It's best to freeze without the sour cream, then add that after baking. You can scrape it off leftovers and add new sour cream after baking. Or freeze them before baking and adding sour cream.

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