Mini Stuffed Potatoes

If you’re a fan of loaded baked potatoes for dinner, you’ll love this smaller version for your next party. The recipe for mini stuffed potatoes starts with boiling small whole red potatoes. When soft (and cool enough to handle), scoop out the insides, mix them with sour cream, cheese and bacon, and then bake until warm. It’s the perfect little finger food that packs a punch.

Recipe contributor Carol Bess White of Portland, Oregon, loves serving these for get-togethers with friends and family because they look impressive but take little effort. Set them on the hors d’oeuvre table at your next cocktail party, cookout or potluck. You can even serve them as a savory side dish with grilled steaks or burgers.

Mini Stuffed Potato Ingredients

• Small red potatoes: Red potatoes are typically waxy, and you can substitute small waxy white, blue or yellow potatoes if that’s what you happen to have. Mixing up all the colors can be fun too.
• Butter: There are a couple of salty ingredients in the filling, so if you’ve got unsalted butter, it’s a good choice for this recipe.
• Parmesan cheese: As with many of our Parmesan cheese recipes, we highly recommend buying a wedge and shredding it yourself. The canned or pre-shredded stuff isn’t as flavorful.
• Bacon: You can use leftover cooked bacon in this recipe, or crisp some right before starting the potatoes. Any type of bacon works, but it’s best to make it pretty crispy to get good crumbles.
• Sour cream: Sour cream holds the filling together and adds a delicious zingy flavor. Use full-fat sour cream for the best results.
• Egg: A room-temperature beaten egg really brings the stuffing together. It’s also why you need to cook this dish to the proper internal temperature.
• Salt and pepper: A few shakes of salt and grinds of pepper make up the bulk of the seasoning in this dish. If you can grind the pepper fresh, you’ll notice the difference.
• Paprika: Most commonly made from dehydrated sweet peppers, paprika gives the filling a tinge of color. For a bit more edge, use spicy or smoked paprika.

Directions

Step 1: Cook the potatoes

Scrub the potatoes and place them in a large saucepan with water to cover. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until tender. Drain.

Editor’s Tip: You can also roast the potatoes before stuffing them, which will give them an extra layer of caramelized flavor and might make them easier to scoop and stuff.

Step 2: Prep the potatoes for stuffing

When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut a thin slice off the top of each. Scoop out the pulp, leaving a thin shell.

Editor’s Tip: To make it easier, you can also cut a thin slice from the bottom of each potato to prevent it from rolling when setting it on the plate or platter.

Step 3: Make the filling

Preheat the oven to 375°F. In a large bowl, mash the potato tops and pulp with butter.

Set aside 2 tablespoons each of cheese and bacon for garnish, and add the remaining cheese and bacon to the potatoes.

Stir in the sour cream, egg, salt and pepper.

Spoon the mixture into the potato shells. Top with remaining cheese and bacon, and sprinkle with paprika.

Step 4: Bake the taters

Place on an ungreased 15x10x1-inch baking pan. Bake until the center of the filling reads 160° on a thermometer, 12 to 18 minutes.

Mini Stuffed Potato Variations

• Add herbs: Get a little bit of green into the filling mix by adding chives, parsley, dill, sage or all of the above. A mix of fresh herbs would be particularly nice, but you could also mix in dried herbs.
• Change the cheese: If you’d like to try something a little different, substitute shredded cheddar, Monterey Jack, Gouda or any classic Swiss cheese, such as Gruyere.
• Scale up the spuds: You can make this recipe with bigger potatoes too. You’ll just need to give them more cooking time so that they’re scoopable.

How to Store Mini Stuffed Potatoes

To store stuffed mini potatoes, line up the extras in a shallow glass container with a snap-top lid or cover them with foil and keep them in the fridge. They’ll last three to four days.

Can you make mini stuffed potatoes ahead of time?

It’s fine to make and stuff the potatoes a day before serving and bake the assembled potatoes when you need ’em. Store them in a fridge-to-oven-safe pan covered with foil, and then you can pop them right into the oven for baking.

Mini Stuffed Potato Tips

How can I make mini stuffed potatoes look more elegant?

For extra-snazzy visuals, scoop the potato and cheese filling into a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Then pipe the filling into the baby potatoes, making a nice swirl at the top.

What can you serve with stuffed mini potatoes?

Stuffed mini potatoes are a perfect party food, so I like to pair them with other bite-sized treats. Think about serving them alongside party shrimp, sweet-and-sour chicken wings, an antipasto platter or chicken meatballs with Buffalo sauce. At dinnertime, they’d be great with garlic grilled steak and some sauteed spinach.