You’ve heard of a loaded potato right? I like them just for everything else that comes with it, forget about the potato. The bacon, sour cream, cheese, and chive are the good stuff. This is a little summertime recipe I like to throw together for cookouts that everyone loves. It’s basically a cold loaded baked potato, but with some twists. This will make about 2 quarts.
- 2 lbs. red potatoes
- 4 scallions
- 1/4 c. shredded pepper jack cheese
- 1/4 c. shredded cheddar cheese
- 1/2 lb Applewood smoked bacon
- 1 tbsp sour cream
- 1 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1/4 c ranch dressing
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh dill
- BACON TIME!!!!! Fire up your oven to 400 and slide that bacon on in there. I like to do bacon in the over, because it get a better crisp and render than in a pan. Flip it about 8-10 minutes in, then let it finish. Let it cool and drain off the grease. Give it a quick rough chop when it cools enough to handle.
- Now, split your potatoes and slice them about 1/4 inch thick. Just barely cover them with cold water and drop about 1 tsp of salt in to the water. Boil thee potatoes for about 20 minutes. We want these mashed potato soft.
- Let the potatoes cool for just about 1 minute then add your cheese and our cream. Stir these in quickly so some of the cheese melts. Let the potatoes finish cooling
- Add your bacon, scallions, mayo, ranch , and dill and mix well. We do want to potato to crumble a bit, so it’ going to be a bit smoother on the palate than a traditional red potato salad.
Quick and easy…and it has bacon. You can’t go wrong there. So how do you play with it? Change out the potatoes for one, switch out your cheese if you like too. I like to add some blue cheese to this when I’m in the right mood. You can even take out the bacon and replace it with something like Chorizo Sausage or Tasso Ham. I’ll be doing some more variations soon.
Happy Eating
-The Doctor.