10 Recipes That Make A Baked Potato Into A Hearty, Filling Meal

Baked potatoes are an easy, no-fuss carbohydrate that can help round out a meal. However, on their own, a baked potato will only get you so far. A medium-sized spud weighs a little over 5 ounces, provides only 110 calories, has no fat, and contains a mere 3 grams of protein — not nearly enough for a well-rounded meal. Not only will you still feel hungry afterward, but you'll also be missing out on some pretty crucial macronutrients. Fortunately, like rice and pasta, baked potatoes offer an excellent base for other ingredients. 

If you're staring into a mostly-empty fridge and struggling for ideas, there are plenty of ways to turn this simple, starchy vegetable into a wholesome one-pan dinner. Sure, you'll need a few other items to zhuzh your potato up a bit, but you can do this with a surprisingly basic array of pantry staples. So check to make sure that you've got some spuds in stock, and read on to discover a few of the ways you can turn this humble root vegetable into a hearty, filling meal.

In the U.K., loaded baked potatoes are known as "jacket potatoes," suggesting that the filling is the star of the show, while the spud itself is merely a vehicle for other ingredients. This recipe backs up that assumption by covering the potato with everything you'd find in a cottage pie. To create this rich and filling meal, the vegetables and ground beef are cooked in a velvety concoction of Worcestershire sauce, Guinness, sour cream, and broth, and served in a salty potato skin rather than a casserole dish.

Recipe: Beefy English Jacket Potato

Twice-baked potatoes are delicious, even if you don't add any fillings to the creamy flesh. As soon as you start layering in new ingredients, the sky is the limit. In this case, the addition of tangy barbecue chicken is a striking complement to the cheesy spuds. First, bake the potatoes and the barbecue sauce-soaked chicken. Then, scoop out the potatoes to make a mash, combine it with the shredded chicken, refill the skins, and bake again. For extra oomph, you can make your own barbecue sauce.

Recipe: Barbecue Chicken-Stuffed Twice-Baked Potatoes

Football season wouldn't be complete without Buffalo wings, and you can bring that delicious flavor to the table year-round with Buffalo chicken-stuffed sweet potatoes. The combination of spicy, homemade Buffalo sauce, blue cheese sauce, and sweet potatoes will thrill your taste buds, though you can always use regular potatoes if you prefer. Make sure to use Louisiana-style hot sauce for this recipe, as it typically offers the perfect balance of heat, sweetness, and tanginess. Before tucking in, remember to garnish your spuds with chopped chives to round out the flavor profile.

Recipe: Buffalo Chicken-Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

There's more than one way to make a cottage pie-themed baked potato. Unlike the beefed-up jacket potato, this delicious recipe emulates the classic dish by stuffing the spud with well-seasoned beef mince and vegetables, before concealing the juicy filling under a fluffy, cheesy mashed potato topping. This recipe also uses red wine instead of Guinness, which adds an extra hint of tanginess along with the Worcestershire sauce.

Recipe: Fluffy Cottage Pie Baked Potatoes

While making twice-baked potatoes may be a little more time-consuming than the usual approach, it's almost always worth the extra effort — especially with a recipe like this. Cheddar cheese, sour cream, salty bacon, and green onions provide a harmonious explosion of flavor and texture in every bite. The recipe's creator, Ting Dalton, notes that you can change things up by using blue cheese instead of cheddar, and swapping the green onions for chives. You can even add spinach for a nutritious boost.

Recipe: Ultimate Twice-Baked Potatoes

If the word "slow" has you concerned about spending a long stretch in the kitchen, don't worry — this recipe only requires around 15 minutes of prep time, and you won't regret the wait. On the face of it, this appears to be a typical loaded baked potato with bacon, cheese, and chives. However, instead of only baking it for an hour and a half, the recipe calls for a full three hours in the oven, resulting in a far fluffier spud with a crispier skin.

Recipe: Super Slow-Cooked Loaded Baked Potatoes

It's hard to beat a traditional loaded baked potato, but why not keep the ingredients and change the formula? We're talking about turning that creamy, bacon-covered spud into a salad. The base is a little like mashed potatoes — minus the actual mashing — and swaps milk for mayonnaise to give it more of a potato salad vibe. The results are delicious, but you don't have to take our word for it: this recipe has scored five-star reviews across the board from Mashed readers.

Recipe: Creamy Loaded Baked Potato Salad

Not only will this recipe remind you of sweet potatoes' boundless potential, but it takes just 15 minutes to make, relying on your microwave instead of your oven. Plus, the toppings vary from the standard loaded baked potato formula, including beans, corn, red onion, and apple cider vinegar. For anyone seeking a healthy and hearty potato-based meal, this recipe is tough to beat.

Recipe: 15-Minute Loaded Sweet Potatoes

When it comes to baked potatoes, cheddar is often the cheese of choice, but this recipe might convince you otherwise. Using brie adds an extra layer of sophistication, offering an ooey, gooey texture that cheddar can't match. Bacon provides the ideal flavor and texture contrast to the creamy cheese and potato, and if you want to elevate this dish further, try adding a sweet, fruity topping — a good chutney will make all the difference.

Recipe: Brie And Bacon Potato Skins

This recipe makes twice-baked potatoes a doddle if you have an Instant Pot, slashing the initial bake time by more than half. As far as toppings go, we're sticking with the classics — sour cream, cheese, bacon bits, and scallions. The black olives are optional, but once you experience their salty, savory contribution, they'll likely become a regular feature in your rotation of baked potato fixings.

Recipe: Instant Pot Twice-Baked Potatoes

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