Loaded Potato Skins Recipe

Loaded potato (opens in new tab) skins are a moreish and crowdpleasing party food (opens in new tab) snack. They’re a fab way to jazz up your spuds. Any miniature potatoes will be great in this recipe and make for a fantastic canapé. With the jacket potato toppings on, they will blow your guests away. These loaded potato skins are simple and you can even make them ahead of time. Dressed crab adds a classy feel to these loaded potato skins and cheese and bacon is always, a hit and goes exceptionally well with the lovely crispy skins.

Ingredients

• 1kg baby potatoes
• 2tbsp salted butter
• 2tbsp double cream

For the crab filling:

• 1 dressed crab
• 2tbsp crème fraiche
• 1 red chilli, chopped

For the cheese and bacon filling:

• 200g smoked bacon lardons
• 80g mature cheddar, grated
• 3 spring onions, finely sliced

Method

1. Boil the potatoes for 20-25mins, until cooked but firm. Leave to cool.
2. Heat the oven to 220C. Halve the cooled potatoes, and scoop out the centre of the flesh – we did this using a melon baller, put what you have scooped out into a small bowl, add the butter and cream, and mash with a fork. Place the skins, empty side up, on a roasting tray, drizzle generously with vegetable oil, season, and roast for 15-20mins, until crisp.
3. To make the fillings, dived the mashed potato middles between two bowls. Add the crab fillings ingredients to one bowl, and the bacon and cheese filling ingredients to another and blitz with a hand blender until combined. Fill half of the crispy potato skins the crab filling and half with the bacon and cheese, garnish with chopped chilli and spring onion.