Unless you’re living your life better than me (probably!), I bet it’s been way too long since you last had a baked potato for dinner — or, as they’re more charmingly called across the pond, “jacket potato.” And it’s a crime because they’re so cozy and uncomplicated to make, we could fix this right now.
While nobody at my table needs to be talked into the usual toppings — butter, cheddar, sour cream, bacon bits, and chives (it’s just not right without green confetti everywhere) — I’ve been afflicted with that pesky, groan-nut problem wherein I need every meal to also have a sturdy vegetable component. Over the years, I’ve attempted resolution in mushroom ragú baked potatoes, cauliflower cheese baked potatoes (in Smitten Kitchen Keepers), twice-baked potatoes with kale, and even baked potato soup with greens stirred in. But nothing, nothing has even come close to the standing ovation-level success of bite-sized pieces of broccoli and bacon that had been roasted together until both were salty and crisp. You tuck them into the oven halfway through the potatoes’ baking time and, I hope, applaud yourself for the economy and ease in which you pulled off dinner tonight.
Now that dinner is sorted, I have, well, an edict to share, one I’ve carefully considered over many, many critical bites of baked potato,
The One True Correct Order To Load A Baked Potato:
- Step 1: A baked potato, pressed in and popped open so the fluffy center is exposed.
- Step 2: A generous pat or two of butter that will melt through the fluff on contact.
- Step 3: Salt and pepper. “Season as you go!” as the chefs say.
- Step 4: Cheddar cheese, which — I don’t make the rules — has to be the orange kind. It, too, will melt shortly after making contact.
- Step 4: Any crispy components, such as bacon and, here, broccoli too. They will take a nap in the melted cheddar cheese hammock, as we’d all like to.
- Step 5: A dollop of sour cream, Breakstone’s or bust.
- Step 6: A final dusting of salt and pepper and then minced chives everywhere. Honestly, if we’re not sweeping them off the floor, we probably didn’t do it right.
- Step 7: If you’re my children and I’ve all but given up on table manners (some nights!) at the point when the potato is largely emptied of these toppings, a second, smaller layer of toppings will be added, the potato pressed closed, and eaten like a taco.
Video
Baked Potatoes with Crispy Broccoli and Bacon
- 4 (about 8 ounces or 225 grams each) russet potatoes, scrubbed clean
- Olive oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 pound (455 grams) fresh broccoli, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 4 ounces (115 grams) bacon (about 4 slices), diced
- Butter
- Sharp orange cheddar, coarsely grated
- Sour cream
- Minced fresh chives
To finish
Meanwhile, roast the broccoli and bacon: Toss broccoli with a couple tablespoons of olive oil (just to lightly coat it since there will also be bacon fat to season it), salt, and freshly ground black pepper on a small- to medium-sized baking sheet. Add diced bacon, and toss so it’s distributed throughout the pan. 15 minutes into the potato baking time, add this pan to your oven. Roast it for 25 to 30 minutes total or until the bacon is crisp and the broccoli is almost charred, turning the pieces over and moving them around once or twice during the roasting time so it cooks evenly.
Your potatoes might be done at the same time or they might need up to 15 minutes more.
To serve: I find that the potato is better at opening where I want it to if I perforate it once or twice down the middle with a fork. Use towel- or potholder- covered hands to press the ends of the potato in to pop it open, then pull them back so you have lots of space to add the toppings. Load each potato with butter, salt and pepper, cheddar, a big scoop of roasted broccoli and bacon, sour cream, chives, and more salt and pepper. Eat right away.
That taco method sounds brilliant!! Just thinking I needed a non-mash accompaniment to meatloaf, excellent timing. Also, definitely do the fork pierce, I have always been a skeptic but I had one blow up in my oven earlier this year. Exploded potato starch is zero fun to remove from your oven.
Yeah, Deb, your kids are geniuses. I can’t believe I never thought to taco my potato!
I once blew up an eggplant – one of the worst kitchen messes I ever made. Always stab now.
Melted cheddar cheese hammock! Your clever writing has made me check your blog daily for years. If you had never cooked a thing, your writing would always make me happy. Thanks!
I make baked potatoes often because it’s one of the few meals my three kids will all (usually…) agree to eat, but I’ve never thought of roasting the bacon and broccoli together. Definitely will try.
Haha, step 7, so relatable. We regularly have jacket potatoes with cauliflower cheese made with mascarpone cheese, seedy mustard and sharp cheddar (it’s so much easier than the whole bechamel malarkey) and I usually end up with a bit smushed in the empty shell, folded over and munched on!
That sounds heavenly, I will try that! Thanks!
The mushroom ragu is a favourite in our house. I also love them with Bolognese or your turkey chili!
Oh yeah it’s baked potato season, baby.
This will be real good with a Perfect Manhattan.
mmm. . . The potatoes look tasty. Potatoes, broccoli, and bacon are a nice combination.
In fall and winter I usually pop potatoes in the oven Sunday morning to bake for an hour before we leave for church. When we get home and everyone is starving, all I have to do is turn the oven back on to rewarm them for a few minutes while I prep toppings. Roasting broccoli and bacon alongside is a brilliant idea—I love broccoli and cheese with my tater!
Tried it today and it was great! I do always wrap my Sunday potatoes in foil, since I’m afraid they’d dry out too much sitting in the still-warm oven for a few extra hours. Otherwise followed the recipe!
Deb, read #7. I believe you left a word out. After all has been eaten what will be added to eat like a taco?
Thanks, now fixed!
Did you give up on metric? Please say it isn’t so!
No, sorry — forgot! Now fixed.
This looks fabulous – thank you! Though, I’m surprised you haven’t put beans on a potato yet!
I was completely Team Breakstone’s until Fage came out with their own sour cream a few months ago. Since they are my Upstate NY neighbor, I had to give it a try. Now, I can never go back! The taste is sublime!
P.S. I love imagery of the broccoli & bacon taking a nap in a potato hammock. Love, Love!
I moved to the west coast last year and Darigold sour cream is the best I ever tasted. I think it’s because it has live cultures just like yogurt. I won’t buy anything else now.
I have always thought that the reason for stabbing baked potatoes was so they wouldn’t explode
Making THIS next week. Immediately went to mushroom ragu recipe and will make that the following week. BUT, where is the recipe for tomato pepper salad with guacamole and ranch dressing.? The baked potato of my dreams. Sounds glorious. Will wait.
Truly. I’ve only been nostalgic for it for, uh, 26 years!
Let’s not wait until 27?💕
Any sub suggestions for the bacon?
I don’t eat bacon much either. I’m fond of putting a few roasted, salted sunflower seeds on my baked potatoes. Salty crunch!
Sadness?
Jk jk
Sorry, I had to.
Something salty crunchy like crispy shallots maybe?
Something like salty roasted breadcrumbs/panko mixed with Parmesan? On the other hand, there’s already cheese in the filling…
Or garlicky croutons?
Smoked salt on the broccoli, perhaps?
Crispy shallots, perhaps?
We make loaded baked potatoes on the regular for dinner with roasted broccoli- a great way to eat tons of broccoli but feel like you’re eating a bowl full of carbs. Because we’re Southern Californians though, we use plain yogurt instead of sour cream. Also a huge help is the delay start feature on my oven so I can put things in the oven earlier in the day and then have dinner ready a few hours later
This is my favorite feature on our new oven! It is the best feature I didn’t even think I’d use but now I can’t imagine living without it.
Made this the day the recipe was posted and it was everything I thought it would be: cozy, comforting, delicious. The leftovers the next day were equally good. Already can’t wait to make it again!
This Halloween, in addition to candy, I gave out potatoes. I heard it was a thing. I bought five gigantic Russet potatoes (they probably were almost a pound each) and put them in a plastic cauldron. Would you believe they were gone before the candy? I can only hope they will be used to make these Loaded Baked Potatoes. My daughter tells me that the kids will probably hang onto them until their parents throw them away, which would be a shame.
I love this!
As do I! And I can’t resisting chiming in here bc our neighbor is an internationally famous potato geneticist (yes, you read that correctly), and he gave purple potatoes to the trick-or-treaters! I didn’t know it was A Thing (bc I often don’t know when things are Things…which might be associated with living in a neighborhood with the likes of an internationally famous potato geneticist).
You guys have got to be kidding with the disgusting dust mites ads !! Who is your editor??? Have you no idea how off message and detracting this is? I m absolutely sure whoever is paying you for this ad placement is wielding an unhealthy amount of influence over your common sense. I mean how far will you let greed over run and compromise your project?
Hi Sharon! Even though your post was absolutely unhinged, I’ll try to answer you earnestly here since there have been similar questions about ads in the past. Deb and her team don’t actually choose (positively or negatively) the ads; the ad service simply pays for the banner space. The ads are almost always selected based on *your* own metadata and algorithms. With that said, I agree that ad companies need to be more transparent about what they give ad space to, and also give creators better control over what’s shown on the page. Hope this helps!
A+ reply
Hi! Yes, sorry some gross ads have gotten through this week. We’re trying to remove them. No, I am never paid directly for gross ads, they slip in in batch sales. We also have categories blocked, like political ads, but they also slip through. It’s not malicious/nefarious. I want my site to look nice too!
I have found that the potato fluffs nicely if I cut a small wedge across the top of the potato to open the skin and vent the steam out. This is the full length of the potato about 1/4″ wide at the top and tapered down to take out about a 1/2″ deep wedge. Rub it with butter or duck fat and cook it in the air fryer for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size. Add your toppings and let the good times roll!
Are you even human if you don’t add a second layer of toppings to the mostly empty skin and eat it like a taco??
I fell in love with your recipe for Twice Baked Potatoes with Kale. I renamed them Bohemian Rhapsody Potatoes because when I first made a batch, we rented Bohemian Rhapsody online and the two were perfect partners. The goat cheese addition to the stuffing mash is heavenly; so is using 5% fat Fage greek yogurt. I smush sauteed mushrooms into that batch as well and make the roundest full servings I can! This recipe looks great too, especially the “taco” seconds. Yum!
Please, listen to Deb, make this as soon as you possibly can. It had been years since I cooked baked potatoes for my family, and this variation was a HIT!
I was surprised/happy to learn I didn’t need to fiddle with aluminum foil wrapped around the potatoes. Placing them directly into the oven worked great.
If you, like me, are briefly tempted to roast the broccoli and bacon separately because you don’t believe the bacon will get sufficiently crispy – do not make this mistake, trust the recipe! The bacon gets wonderfully crispy and, much more importantly, the broccoli winds up tasting like bacon. My toddler ate an entire plate of this broccoli. It’s magic broccoli!
Thanks for another weeknight winner.
Doesn’t everyone savor the skin at the end? I’ve never not added a little extra butter, salt and pepper to finish it off. I will occasionally save it for lunch the next day, reheat in the toaster oven, and YUM!
Also, the leftovers made a really good cheddar potato soup! Similar to the one on the site, but without the flour
My daughter loves baked potatoes so I made this and they were absolutely fabulous! Perfect for a cold Maine night. You are a genius.
Made this tonight for dinner and it was absolutely delicious. My husband is definitely a meat and potatoes kind of guy and even he loved it. We had these and a nice garden salad and it was perfection. Thank you!
Love the way the broccoli and bacon is cooked together. I made this but used sweet potatoes instead of regular and added black beans that I had heated up in some salsa. Your recipe made the skin of the potatoes taste amazing!
We’ve reliably made baked potatoes semi-regularly this fall because it’s a mostly hands-off meal I can stick in the oven while doing the extra curricular driving. We usually alternate between chili beans, cheese, sour cream & chives or tinned salmon, steamed broccoli and a cheese sauce.
I’m going to add this to the rotation though because the broccoli/bacon is even more hands off!
This was my childhood comfort food minus the bacon. My mom was not a great cook and didn’t love cooking but this was one the go to meals she made for us as kids. Quick, satisfying, healthy enough, and cheap. We didn’t have a lot of money either so it wasn’t until I was an adult in conversation with her that I realized this meal was a way to stretch things…I like the idea of food bloggers posting recipe ideas based on items people could get at a food pantry and or cheaply…feels especially necessary right now. Thank you the bit of nostalgia, too.
Fab! and relatively easy to prep. I will use more broccoli next time because it shrinks up when roasted and it’s so good. Times were right on.
Thank you for the reminder that a baked potato really is a perfect dinner.
Baked potatoes are a regular in my house, especially when my mother was living with us for just over a year. We always have cheddar and green onions around. Sour cream, not so much, but we do always have cream cheese which subs in well. I usually heat up a can of black beans with some salsa and roast whatever vegetables we have available. Good, filling, low effort, and easy to satisfy fussy eaters.
This is shockingly good, and so easy. Also: Apparently I’ve been baking potatoes wrong my entire life. With this method they are divine.
Sprinkling whatever herbal seasoning mix you like (I used Penzey’s fox point) into the potato, on top of the butter but before the cheese, takes it over the top!
Made this for my toddler and husband last night, subbing in yogurt for sour cream because that’s what we had on hand. My one-year-old snuck in a few bites of broccoli between fistfuls of potatoes, so I’d say it was a smashing hit. Now that we’re in “gathering season,” I’m looking for recipes that help stretch our grocery budget, and this fit the bill perfectly.
450 seemed to be too hot for my bacon. It burned black after about 10 min! Maybe my oven runs hot.
Vegetarian bacon substitution that worked great for this: crispy fried onions (from store-bought package) + smoked paprika! Got the crispy/savory/smoky essences without the meat. This was so good and easy!
Question: groan-nut problem = grown-up problem?
Either way, I know what I’m making for dinner tonight! Thank you!