Loaded Baked Potato Rounds Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why should you poke holes in a potato before baking it? ›

Pricking the potatoes with a fork creates tiny holes that allows steam to escape. This prevents your potato from bursting open in the oven (and making a mess!).

"I see a lot of people using foil to wrap their potatoes in but this is a big no-no and causes soggy skins!" he says. Foil holds in moisture and steams the potatoes, resulting in a "boiled" taste and texture. Plus, without the use of foil, the skin will get extra crispy and flavorful.

A loaded baked potato is typically topped with a variety of ingredients such as cheese, sour cream, and bacon, whereas a regular baked potato is often served with just butter and perhaps some salt and pepper.

Using a fork, pierce holes into each potato- about 3 pokes on each side. Brush coconut oil on each potato, making sure to cover them entirely. Sprinkle with salt and bake for 45-55 minutes, or until a fork can pierce the potato easily.

Wrapping potatoes in foil does not hasten baking. On the contrary, since the foil itself has to be heated before the potato begins to bake, cooking times increase slightly. Not only do you get better baked potatoes when you bake them unwrapped, you also save money.

Chefs put salt on the outside of their baked potatoes

The secret to achieving this is a hefty dose of salt. Steakhouse chefs cover their baked potatoes in salt before sticking them in the oven, often helping the crystals adhere with a generous coating of oil.

We recommend baking potatoes at 400 degrees F for about an hour. Smaller spuds might take a little less time, while larger baking potatoes over 1 pound might take a little more.

Some say wrapping baked potatoes in aluminum foil helps them cook faster (aluminum conducts heat, then traps it), and it does keep them hot for longer once they come out of the oven, which is why we think restaurants use this method. Wrapping potatoes will also give you a softer, steamed skin, if that's what you like.

Q: Why is it common to salt the exterior of a baked potato? A: Chefs started doing this years ago to allow the salt to absorb or draw out the moisture of the potato while baking, which results in a dry, fluffy potato.

Wendy's baked potatoes are wrapped in foil and baked in a convection oven for one hour. These logistics present challenges that other chains, besides the occasional Arby's, have opted out of. Wendy's is the only fast food restaurant to offer a baked potato nationwide.

How do restaurants cook baked potatoes so fast? ›

They pre-bake them. Restaurants bake potatoes ahead of time and keep them warm until they are needed. It's called “made in advance”. Every restaurant out there has things that are prepped well in advance.

The reason is to prevent the potatoes exposure to air, which causes dehydration, oxidation, and discoloration. Immersing cut potatoes will also help rinse off excess starch.

Loaded Mashed Potatoes

Our famous mashed potatoes topped with melted cheddar cheese, bacon, sour cream and green onions.

A: I would just skip poking the potato all together. It is very rare that a baked potato will burst if the steam can't escape.

It is a totally myth. I have been baking potatoes for about 50 years and I have never pricked holes in them. I have also never heard of nor seen a potato explode in the oven. It just doesn't happen.

Rumor has it that an un-pricked spud will explode in the oven—but in all actuality, that's unlikely.

For this experiment, we washed two potatoes and poked holes with a fork in one of them, leaving the other unpoked. The potatoes were then placed in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and they each took one hour to fully bake. Overall, we did not detect any difference between the poked and unpoked potatoes.