Huge Loaded Baked Potato
Prep
5m
Cook
75m
Total
80m
Bigly says
Let me tell you something. A properly baked potato is one of the GREATEST foods on planet Earth. Not even close. Steak? Steak wishes. Lobster is just expensive shrimp, period. The baked potato, when done right — and almost nobody does it right, almost EVERYBODY gets it wrong — is the king of the dinner table. Hands down. Game over.
What most restaurants serve you as a 'baked potato' is a CRIME against potato-kind. They wrap it in foil. FOIL. Foil is the enemy of a good baked potato — foil STEAMS it, and a steamed potato is a sad potato, a wet potato, a potato that has lost its way. The skin should be CRISP. CRACKLING. Salty like a pretzel. You break into it with a fork and steam rises like a tiny potato volcano and you stand there for a moment and you appreciate what life has given you. That is the experience we are creating today.
And then — and THEN — we load it. Scientists — and I've talked to scientists, very smart people, the smartest, food chemists with multiple degrees, one of them sat me down with a chalkboard for 90 minutes — confirm that a potato can hold roughly four times its weight in toppings before it starts to give up. Four times. So we LOAD. Sour cream. Butter. Cheese. Bacon. Chives. The works. Big strong men, tough men, tougher than you'd believe, take a bite of this potato and they get a little emotional, and I say, 'It's okay. It's the potato. The potato does that.' Trust me.
Ingredients
- 4 (about 12 oz each)large russet potatoes(russets, the big knobby ones, this is the ONE time russets win)
- 2 tbspolive oil
- 2 tspflaky sea salt or kosher salt(the bigger flake the better)
- 6 slicesthick-cut bacon
- 4 tbspunsalted butter
- 1/2 cupsour cream
- 1 cupsharp cheddar cheese, shredded(shred from a block, the pre-shredded stuff has cellulose in it which is FANCY for sawdust)
- 3 tbspchives, finely chopped
- to tastefreshly ground black pepper
Steps
- 1
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Position a rack in the center.
- 2
Scrub the potatoes well under cold water and dry them completely with a clean towel — bone dry, this is non-negotiable for crispy skin.
- 3
Pierce each potato 6-8 times all over with a fork to vent steam.
- 4
Rub each potato generously with olive oil, then sprinkle and pat on the flaky salt to coat the skin.
- 5
Place the potatoes directly on the oven rack (no pan, no foil — the airflow is the point). Slide a baking sheet on the rack below to catch any drips.
- 6
Bake 60-75 minutes, until a paring knife slides into the center with no resistance and the skin is crisp and crackly when tapped.
- 7
While the potatoes bake, cook the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until deeply crisp, 8-10 minutes. Transfer to paper towels, then chop or crumble.
- 8
When the potatoes are done, transfer them to plates. Slice a long deep slit down the top of each, then pinch the ends inward with a towel to pop the potato open and fluff the inside with a fork.
- 9
Drop a tablespoon of butter into each opening and let it melt. Top with sour cream, cheddar, bacon, and chives. Finish with a few cracks of black pepper. Serve immediately.
One more thing
That's the dish. Crisp salty skin, snow-white fluffy inside, butter melting into every crack, sour cream slowly sliding down the side like a tiny dairy avalanche, bacon doing what bacon does, chives adding the green so you can pretend it's healthy. It is not healthy. It is GLORIOUS. Serve it with a steak if you must — but honestly, the steak is now the side. The potato is the main event. The potato has been the main event the whole time. We just didn't have the courage to admit it. I have the courage. Now go eat.
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