The Art of Making Loaded Baked Potatoes: A Step-by-Step Guide

When it comes to loaded baked potatoes, there's no shortage of options for toppings and flavors. However, one of the biggest mistakes people make is not cooking their onions long enough before adding the wet ingredients. This can result in crunchy, raw onions that don't add much flavor to the dish. To avoid this mistake, it's essential to cook your onion and garlic for at least five minutes over medium heat with a lid. This will allow them to sweat off and release their natural sweetness, which is perfect for loaded baked potatoes.

To start, you'll need some basic ingredients like potatoes, onions, garlic, tomato sauce, paprika, Tabasco sauce, wine, canned tomatoes, beans, spring onions, cheddar cheese, water, vinegar, sugar, steak seasoning, and creme fraiche. Once you have all your ingredients ready, it's time to start cooking. Begin by boiling a large pot of water and then peel the potatoes while they're still warm. Cut them into quarters or sixths, depending on how thick you like your potato slices.

Next, place the potatoes in a baking dish and add enough cold water to cover them. Then, sprinkle some salt over the top of each potato and let them sit for about 10-15 minutes. This will help to soften the potatoes slightly and make them easier to bake. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C) and then place the baking dish in the oven.

While the potatoes are baking, you can start cooking your onion and garlic. In a large pan over medium heat, add some oil and sauté the onion and garlic for at least five minutes until they're soft and sweet. Be sure to stir occasionally so that the onions cook evenly. Once the onion and garlic have finished cooking, remove them from the pan and set them aside.

Now it's time to add the tomato sauce and spices to your dish. In a small bowl, mix together some paprika, Tabasco sauce, and a dash of vinegar with sugar. Add this mixture to your cooked onions and stir well. Then, add in your canned tomatoes, beans, and seasonings. Stir everything together until it's fully combined.

In another pan, heat up some red wine over medium heat until it's reduced by half. This will give the dish a rich, depth of flavor that you won't get with white wine or without any wine at all. Once the wine has been reduced, stir in your cooked onion mixture and bring everything to a simmer.

Now it's time to assemble your loaded baked potatoes. Start by placing a quartered potato on each plate. Spoon some tomato sauce over the top of the potato, followed by a sprinkle of cheese, diced spring onions, and cheddar cheese shreds. Drizzle a little bit of creme fraiche over the top of each potato for added creaminess.

To serve, place a dollop of sour cream in the center of each plate and sprinkle some additional cheese on top. You can also add some crispy bacon or chopped scallions to give your dish an extra boost of flavor. Finally, slice up a few leaves of cabbage and add them to the side of each plate for a fresh and crunchy contrast to the warm potato.

While loading baked potatoes are relatively easy to make, there's still one trick you can use to cheat: cooking the potato in the microwave before finishing it off in the oven. Simply prick the skin of the potato with a fork a few times and then cook it for eight minutes on high. Then, finish it off in the oven until it's crispy and golden brown.

Whether you're looking for a quick and easy meal or a more indulgent treat, loaded baked potatoes are an excellent option. By following this simple recipe and using these helpful tips, you can create deliciously loaded baked potatoes that will satisfy even the most discerning palates.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhave you ever wanted to learn to cook but just didn't know where to start well we're the guys from closet food and we've seen that with coops great now cooking a free online course to show you how to up your food day the head over to now cook it to get started but for now check out this video from the course loaded baked potato now this is cheap and cheerful but seriously satisfying I'm going to show you how to make the best jacket potato and obviously it begins with a couple of spuds so pre-heat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius and then we're going to deal with the potatoes what we want to do is prick some of the forks they don't explode yep I have made this mistake before but as they cook if you don't there's a chance of skin will first they make allow bang so just give me a little prick and then rub them in a little bit of olive oil salt and pepper so put some oil on the outside of the toasters I mean it's going to get a nice crispy skin exactly that if you're thinking about something like a pork belly or something's a little bit of fat on the outside that's if it's going to get crispy potatoes very dry so give it that oil basting and it's just going to go incredible you're going to want to put these directly onto the oven rack in about the middle of the oven but make sure you got trans Annie's to catch any of the oil or potato juices that drip and they need about 45 minutes it takes some time but it's not your time you don't have a second option optimism is once you could finish them but don't do that the second seem to lose the tensing up to anything else after 45 minutes you want to turn this one upside down and gives them another 45 minutes to cook until crispy perfection which gives us an ideal amount of time to take a smaller sauce and pimp it to the extreme so we're going to begin with the classic tomato sauce so grab yourself a small white onion you want to top and tail it have it and peel it and then dice it really finely at the same time once we're looking at one clove of garlic that need peeling and chopping I thought we were just going to look at it perfect thank you and now to cook them grab yourself a pan that's big enough for a couple of tins your cleanest Marceau's and it's gonna be later on place about a tablespoon of olive oil in and then your onion and garlic go in you want to cook it's about five minutes over a medium heat with a lid that way they sweat off so frying for underneath of the oil and steaming and keeping all the moisture in because of the lid one of the biggest mistakes with small saussure's is that sometimes the onions are still crunchy and raw before you add in the wet stuff soft and sweet that's what you're looking for so good five minutes with the steam in the frying stirring occasionally once the onion and garlic has had five minutes to sweat off it's time severe away from our classic tomato sauce and we're going to spice it up a little bit with some paprika and some Tabasco sauce now depending on how hot you like it you can add as much or as little of this as you like that what's queued up maybe a clevy yeah perfect then we're going to add in some wine now a classic tomato sauce will probably go for white wine but we want a really deep flavor to this so we're going to go to some red wine you want about a glass and the idea is to add it in and then reduce it by about half the liquid so without the lid you want it all to bubble off now if you don't want to add wine you don't have to it's an optional set it has loads of flavor but if you've got a bottle opened flash them in you haven't got one open you want like one for dinner it's perfect going here but that need to reduce down it probably take another few minutes before it's reduced by half now I know what you're thinking this tomato sauce has a distinct lack of tomorrow so far allow me to help its next up an entire tin of tomatoes you can use fresh tomatoes and pasta sauce but can give you a really consistent quality product so that's going to go in along with a tin of beans now these we have just drained into a sieve among the cold water we're using velocity beans you can use whatever beans you've got in the cupboard or you prefer kidney beans you know faster beans they go in as well and then you want to basically heat the mixture to a bubble again and cook it for about 10 minutes until you've got the consistency of a good source basically you're making homemade basically but that's better while I've been reduced down to consistency we want there's a few things you can get on with number one with spring onions and finely sliced them number two cheddar cheese great that and number three put a big pan of water on the boil now we've given you lots of times when it comes to cooking but they're really just the guidelines it will vary what you should be looking for instead is that kind of consistency when you want to spoon through it you should better just see the bottom of the pan before it fills itself in and now we elevate this Martin saw same as you work the classics multi-source a little drop of vinegar use whatever you've got white wine vinegar red wine vinegar cider vinegar just about a teaspoon and a twenty pinch of sugar and then seasoned steak both of those just transform your beans add to the potato you can take out the oven and what you're looking for is something that is both crispy on the outside but also if you take a table knife and just poke it right into the middle there should be no resistance stops inside that nice and golden and crispy on the outside and the very final thing we're going to do is cabbage to serve with it so just take the outer leaves off of the cabbage and you want to cut the stalk out and then slice up all of that can go into rapidly boiling water now it's pretty key here that water is boiling because it's a green vegetable you want to keep its vibrancy that will only need a couple of minutes which gives you plenty of time to plate off everything else a dollop of creme fraiche sprink of our cheese spring onion absolutely let the cabbage alongside season to taste and there we go everything you need to know to make incredible loaded baked potato and originally it is one of those wheels where you need everything on the fork for the crispy skin you get with texture as well no--but the credibly spring onion anything else so it's worth going the extra effort to make your own being definitely know is worth saying if you're looking at this for a midweek meal you don't have an hour and a half to cook a potato there is a way to cheat you can put the potato in the microwave for eight minutes after using it little prick and then just finish it off in the oven wash you might use a Moscow sauce it will be good not quite as good but it would still be good it's not quite as crispy notes but you're going to get there little easier if you want to give this a go the full recipe and details available down below youhave you ever wanted to learn to cook but just didn't know where to start well we're the guys from closet food and we've seen that with coops great now cooking a free online course to show you how to up your food day the head over to now cook it to get started but for now check out this video from the course loaded baked potato now this is cheap and cheerful but seriously satisfying I'm going to show you how to make the best jacket potato and obviously it begins with a couple of spuds so pre-heat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius and then we're going to deal with the potatoes what we want to do is prick some of the forks they don't explode yep I have made this mistake before but as they cook if you don't there's a chance of skin will first they make allow bang so just give me a little prick and then rub them in a little bit of olive oil salt and pepper so put some oil on the outside of the toasters I mean it's going to get a nice crispy skin exactly that if you're thinking about something like a pork belly or something's a little bit of fat on the outside that's if it's going to get crispy potatoes very dry so give it that oil basting and it's just going to go incredible you're going to want to put these directly onto the oven rack in about the middle of the oven but make sure you got trans Annie's to catch any of the oil or potato juices that drip and they need about 45 minutes it takes some time but it's not your time you don't have a second option optimism is once you could finish them but don't do that the second seem to lose the tensing up to anything else after 45 minutes you want to turn this one upside down and gives them another 45 minutes to cook until crispy perfection which gives us an ideal amount of time to take a smaller sauce and pimp it to the extreme so we're going to begin with the classic tomato sauce so grab yourself a small white onion you want to top and tail it have it and peel it and then dice it really finely at the same time once we're looking at one clove of garlic that need peeling and chopping I thought we were just going to look at it perfect thank you and now to cook them grab yourself a pan that's big enough for a couple of tins your cleanest Marceau's and it's gonna be later on place about a tablespoon of olive oil in and then your onion and garlic go in you want to cook it's about five minutes over a medium heat with a lid that way they sweat off so frying for underneath of the oil and steaming and keeping all the moisture in because of the lid one of the biggest mistakes with small saussure's is that sometimes the onions are still crunchy and raw before you add in the wet stuff soft and sweet that's what you're looking for so good five minutes with the steam in the frying stirring occasionally once the onion and garlic has had five minutes to sweat off it's time severe away from our classic tomato sauce and we're going to spice it up a little bit with some paprika and some Tabasco sauce now depending on how hot you like it you can add as much or as little of this as you like that what's queued up maybe a clevy yeah perfect then we're going to add in some wine now a classic tomato sauce will probably go for white wine but we want a really deep flavor to this so we're going to go to some red wine you want about a glass and the idea is to add it in and then reduce it by about half the liquid so without the lid you want it all to bubble off now if you don't want to add wine you don't have to it's an optional set it has loads of flavor but if you've got a bottle opened flash them in you haven't got one open you want like one for dinner it's perfect going here but that need to reduce down it probably take another few minutes before it's reduced by half now I know what you're thinking this tomato sauce has a distinct lack of tomorrow so far allow me to help its next up an entire tin of tomatoes you can use fresh tomatoes and pasta sauce but can give you a really consistent quality product so that's going to go in along with a tin of beans now these we have just drained into a sieve among the cold water we're using velocity beans you can use whatever beans you've got in the cupboard or you prefer kidney beans you know faster beans they go in as well and then you want to basically heat the mixture to a bubble again and cook it for about 10 minutes until you've got the consistency of a good source basically you're making homemade basically but that's better while I've been reduced down to consistency we want there's a few things you can get on with number one with spring onions and finely sliced them number two cheddar cheese great that and number three put a big pan of water on the boil now we've given you lots of times when it comes to cooking but they're really just the guidelines it will vary what you should be looking for instead is that kind of consistency when you want to spoon through it you should better just see the bottom of the pan before it fills itself in and now we elevate this Martin saw same as you work the classics multi-source a little drop of vinegar use whatever you've got white wine vinegar red wine vinegar cider vinegar just about a teaspoon and a twenty pinch of sugar and then seasoned steak both of those just transform your beans add to the potato you can take out the oven and what you're looking for is something that is both crispy on the outside but also if you take a table knife and just poke it right into the middle there should be no resistance stops inside that nice and golden and crispy on the outside and the very final thing we're going to do is cabbage to serve with it so just take the outer leaves off of the cabbage and you want to cut the stalk out and then slice up all of that can go into rapidly boiling water now it's pretty key here that water is boiling because it's a green vegetable you want to keep its vibrancy that will only need a couple of minutes which gives you plenty of time to plate off everything else a dollop of creme fraiche sprink of our cheese spring onion absolutely let the cabbage alongside season to taste and there we go everything you need to know to make incredible loaded baked potato and originally it is one of those wheels where you need everything on the fork for the crispy skin you get with texture as well no--but the credibly spring onion anything else so it's worth going the extra effort to make your own being definitely know is worth saying if you're looking at this for a midweek meal you don't have an hour and a half to cook a potato there is a way to cheat you can put the potato in the microwave for eight minutes after using it little prick and then just finish it off in the oven wash you might use a Moscow sauce it will be good not quite as good but it would still be good it's not quite as crispy notes but you're going to get there little easier if you want to give this a go the full recipe and details available down below you\n"