Loaded Potato Skins

Submitted by Thomas Payton
(St. Louis Fire Department)

Ingredients

• 8 medium sized russet baking potatoes
• Olive oil
• Sea Salt
• Fresh ground black pepper
• 2 lbs Bacon
• 2-3 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese
• Stalk of green onions sliced
• 2-3 cups sour cream
• Stick of butter
• 2 cloves garlic
• Ranch Dressing(I like to make my ranch dressing from the Hidden Valley seasoning mix. The directions are on the package)

Method

Step 1

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Step 2

As the oven is heating wash off your potatoes, rub them with olive oil so that the outside is completely coated and sprinkle them with sea salt.

Step 3

Place the potatoes in the oven. I put them straight on the rack. Bake them for approx 1 hour.

Step 4

As the potatoes are cooking, fry up you bacon and put it aside to cool.

Step 5

Remove the potatoes and cut them in half. Scoop out some of be potatoes insides leaving about 1/8 of an inch of potato insides and the skin.

Step 6

In a sauce pan, melt your butter. Crush the garlic and add it to the melted butter. Sauté the butter and garlic until the garlic is soft. You can substitute the fresh garlic cloves with 1 tsp garlic powder if you want.

Step 7

Brush the garlic butter on each of the potato skins, inside and out.

Step 8

Sprinkle the potatoes with the fresh ground pepper.

Step 9

Place a generous amount of shredded cheddar cheese on the potato.

Step 10

Place the potatoes on a cookie sheet. Adjust the oven temp to 375 degrees. Put the potatoes back in the top 1/3 of the oven and bake them for another 30 minutes.

Step 11

Remove when the cheese is nice and melted and the skins have crisped up.

Step 12

Crumble the bacon and place is on top of the cheese immediately after they have been removed from the oven.

Step 13

Let them cool for approx 5 minutes.

Step 14

Place a scoop of sour cream on each of the potatoes. Top the sour cream with the sliced up green onion.

Step 15

them with the Ranch dressing as the dipping sauce. You can also serve with blue cheese dressing……OR BOTH!!! If you choose blue cheese, might I suggest Bob’s Big Boy brand?