Twice Baked Potatoes

Check out these incredibly satisfying Twice Baked Potatoes! Crispy potato skins filled with fluffy and creamy mashed potatoes that are loaded with lots of fresh pepper, shredded vegan cheese, and tangy coconut yogurt and topped with crispy shiitake bacon and fresh chives. When I tell you that these don’t last long, it’s not lie. I could barely keep them around long enough to shoot them for this very blog post. And when you make them for yourself, you’ll totally understand why.

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HOW TO MAKE TWICE BAKED POTATOES

What I love about this recipe is that it comes together in a flash! The bulk of the cooking time is baking the potatoes until they are tender and fluffy. Then all you have to do is cut them in half, scoop out the flesh and mix that with a handful of ingredients and pop them back in the oven for the final bake. While that happens, you whip up a batch of my quick and easy Skillet Shiitake Bacon and chop the chives. By the time you finish that, you are ready to plate and garnish.

POTATO PREPARATION

For baking the potatoes, you can do so on a baking sheet or in a large cast iron skillet. Although, after testing this both ways, I would recommend a baking sheet if I had to pick one. Before baking, you’ll want to give the spuds a nice rinse and then a massaging of some oil and a sprinkling of coarse sea salt. This will help to make the skins crispy and flavorful. After about one hour, you will have tender and delicious baked potatoes!

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SCOOPING OUT THE CENTER

The next step is to scoop out the flesh of the baked potatoes. The trick here is to leave a border of flesh close to the skin so it will hold its shape when stuffing and baking them again. You don’t have to be too precious about this. Just remember that you want them to hold up so don’t go crazy when scraping.

One more trick I wanted to mention is to sacrifice one of the halves so that you can have more filling for the final stuffed potatoes. This means after baking three potatoes and halving them, you’ll end up with 6 halves. Once you scoop out all of the flesh, you can simply eat one the skins (try drizzling it with a touch of truffle oil!) as a chef’s treat and use its filling for the rest of the skins. This way you end up with 5 beautiful and full Twice Baked Potatoes.

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PREPARING THE FILLING

To give this filling a classic twice baked potato vibe, I opted to use a shredded vegan cheese (I like Violife’s Mexican Shreds) in addition to a thick and creamy plain coconut yogurt (I love Cocojune or Culina) to replace the traditional sour cream. If you know of a vegan sour cream that is delicious then you can certainly use that! Unfortunately, I haven’t found one that I love just yet so I find that a thick and creamy coconut yogurt works nicely. Please be careful, though. Some vegan yogurts have a strange flavor and are too sweet for a savory application like this. If you can’t find a thick and creamy coconut yogurt that is neutral in flavor, you can use your favorite vegan cream cheese in a pinch!

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ASSEMBLING THE TWICE BAKED POTATOES

After you scoop out the flesh, mash with the seasonings, cheese, and yogurt. Next, you are ready to fill the potato skins. Simply mound the mashed potatoes into the skins with a spoon. For added texture, I like to run a fork across the top to create lines which will create more golden brown goodness.

SHIITAKE BACON AND CHIVES TO GARNISH

While the potatoes bake initially or during the second round, you can whip up a batch of my Skillet Shiitake Bacon which takes less than 15 minutes. Then when the potatoes are done, you place the shiitake bacon on top and shower them with freshly chopped chives. Of course, green onions would work beautifully here! You could even use freshly chopped parsley or thyme, as well.

I hope that you enjoy these twice baked potatoes! They are the perfect appetizer to bring to a gathering as you can assemble them before hand and they are easy to heat back up. They are also delicious served at room temperature, too. When it comes to storage, you can keep them tightly sealed in the fridge for a couple of days, but I really can’t imagine them lasting that long! If you are looking for some other delicious recipes to try, check these out:

Mushroom Gravy

Roasted Delicata Squash

Incredible Gluten Free Dinner Rolls

If you do try this recipe, please leave a comment and rating below. It greatly helps the health of my site and makes me oh so happy to read. Thank you for being here and happy cooking, y’all.

-Timothy

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