Recipe Collection: Potato Skins

Last week I posted a delicious recipe for Chicken Broccoli Baked Potato Soup.  If you haven’t seen it, go back and look.

I reminded you to save the potato skins.  I did!  This is a great way to be frugal in the kitchen, to get two meals out of one set of potatoes.  Scoop the potatoes for the soup a little bit lightly and save them for this use.  They will keep in the fridge for a few days after soup-making if you don’t want this right away.  It’s just a wonderful use of “leftovers” that you would otherwise throw away.  With the way my kids eat, I need all the help I can get!

Luckily, these are also super simple to make.  And yummy.  Serve them alone as a snack, or serve them as a side dish to grilled summer burgers, or as a game-day appetizer, if you happen to be into sports.  I’m told they’re popular there…although I wouldn’t know. 🙂

If you don’t have leftover skins, simply bake your potatoes for about an hour (with holes poked in them, please, so they don’t explode!), allow them to cool enough to handle, slice lengthwise, and scoop out most of the flesh.  Then go use that for the soup.  Either way, you get the soup!

Recipe Collection: Potato Skins

(How to video at the end)

Ingredients:

• 4 – 6 medium potatoes, wash, poked, and baked
• 2 tbsp. butter
• 4 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 – 3 strips of bacon, cooked until crisp
• Green onions, sour cream, etc. for serving

Directions:

Step 1: Scoop the skins out (leaving some potato left) and lay them on a baking tray.

Step 2: Put a small piece of butter into each of them, about 1/2 tsp.

Step 3: Stick this in the oven at 350 for 5 – 10 minutes until the butter is melted.

Step 4: Once they come out of the oven, add the shredded cheese and top with bacon.

Step 5: Stick this back in the oven for another 5 minutes or so, until the cheese is melted.

Step 6: Remove from the oven and top with bacon, green onions, and serve with sour cream, if you like.

How do you like to serve potato skins?