Meatless Family Dinners

Loaded Baked Potato Bar

Name: Loaded Baked Potato Bar
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 8 h
Total time: 8 h
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 6 large russet potatoes, scrubbed and dried; 3 tbsp olive oil; 2 tsp coarse salt; 6 sheets of aluminium foil; butter, sour cream, grated cheddar, spring onion, chives, crumbled bacon, broccoli florets and chili, to serve

Not really a recipe, more a way to feed six people for a few dollars and have everyone think they chose it themselves.

Serves6

Prep5 min

Low8 hr

High4 hr

Pot6 qt

What goes in

6 large russet potatoes, scrubbed and dried
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp coarse salt
6 sheets of aluminium foil

Stir in at the end

butter, sour cream, grated cheddar, spring onion, chives, crumbled bacon, broccoli florets and chili, to serve

Prick them, oil them, wrap them

Pricking lets steam escape so they do not burst. Oil and coarse salt on the skin is what makes the skin worth eating. Foil keeps them from steaming into wet lumps against the ceramic.

How to make it

Loaded Baked Potato Bar in the slow cooker

Scrub the potatoes and dry them completely. A wet potato steams instead of baking.
Prick each one all over with a fork, eight or ten times.
Rub each with olive oil and roll it in the coarse salt.
Wrap each potato in foil and stack them in the pot. No water goes in the pot at all.
Lid on. Low 8 hours or high 4 hours, until a knife slides through the centre with no resistance.
Unwrap, split them open, fluff the inside with a fork, and put every topping on the table in its own bowl.

Swap it

Sweet potatoes work and need an hour less. Leftover chili from recipe 21 or 41 turns this into a full dinner.