Lobster-Stuffed Baked Potato Recipe

These lobster-stuffed baked potatoes will make you forget everything you thought you knew about the humble double-baked spud. This recipe takes one of the most comforting, unfussy foods and transforms it into something genuinely special, without losing track of what makes a good baked potato great in the first place.

As a recipe developer and blogger, I love a good filled baked potato, but I tend to avoid making them for my family. To be honest, while they taste amazing, I always thought they were too fussy for the result. Between the first bake, hollowing out, making the mashed potato filling, baking it again, it all takes so long and tastes only mildly better than regular mashed potatoes, or a baked potato casserole. But this lobster-stuffed baked potato has taken me from a reluctant baked potato consumer firmly into the baked potato aficionado category.

Both the technique and the ingredients set this recipe apart. To honor the expensive, delicate meat of the lobster tails, we pass the potato flesh through a fine mesh strainer to get a silky, lump-free texture that we mix with butter and crème fraîche, and then pipe in for extra elegance. The lobster filling gets a quick saute with shallots, garlic, and good dry white wine, giving each bite real depth of sharp-sweet allium-tinged flavor. And the sauce that accompanies it? It's delicate, herbaceous, and creamy, with an undercurrent of bright acidity from lemon. The final dish is one that is worth all the work and better than the sum of its parts.

To make the baked potatoes, you'll need russet potatoes, vegetable oil, and salt. Russet potatoes are starchy, floury potatoes that are perfect for baking because their flesh turns creamy while their peel crisps up. If you can't find russets, you can use another white potato. 

For the herb sauce that will go alongside these baked potatoes, you'll need crème fraîche, mayonnaise, fresh chives, fresh tarragon, lemon juice, lemon zest, white wine vinegar, salt, and white pepper.

For the lobster filling, you'll want butter, shallots, garlic, dry white wine, the meat from a few lobster tails, salt, and white pepper. And for mixing with the potato filling, you'll need more butter, crème fraîche, fresh chives, and flaky salt.

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Scrub the potatoes, prick them all over with a fork, and rub them with oil and salt.

Bake the potatoes directly on the rack for 55–60 minutes until completely tender when pierced.

While the potatoes bake, to make the herb sauce, whisk all the sauce ingredients together, season, and refrigerate.

Preheat a pan with 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.

Add the shallot and saute over medium heat until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.

Add the white wine and cook to reduce until nearly dry.

Add the lobster meat, toss to coat, season with salt and white pepper, and remove from the heat.

When the potatoes are done, slice off the top third lengthwise. Scoop the flesh from both the lid and the base, leaving a ¼-inch wall on the base.

Pass all the potato flesh through a tight fine-mesh colander into a bowl, pressing firmly with a spatula. Work in batches and scrape the underside of the colander between passes.

Fold in the butter and crème fraîche while still hot.

Fold the lobster mixture into the potato, reserving about a cup for the top.

Take half the filling and scoop it into the potatoes.

Transfer the remaining filling to a piping bag fitted with a large round or star tip.

Pipe the remaining filling back into the potato shells, mounding it above the rim. Top it with the reserved lobster pieces.

Return the potatoes to the oven for 8–10 minutes until heated through.

Brush the large lobster pieces with melted butter. Drizzle with herb sauce, scatter chives, and sprinkle with flaky salt.

Serve immediately with the remaining herb sauce on the side.

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This lobster-stuffed baked potato is the kind of dish that looks wildly impressive but comes together in under an hour and a half of mostly hands-off labor. However, if you do want to simplify it further, we have some shortcuts and suggestions that don't diminish from its taste.

If you want to skip the piping bag, you don't have one, or don't feel like looking for the right tip, you absolutely can. The dish will be less dramatic but just as impressive, because who can scoff at lobster meat and that gorgeous chive sauce? Simply stuff your potatoes using a spoon, and run over the top with a fork to create swirls. Also, instead of passing the potato through a strainer, you can simply mash the filling well with a fork or a potato masher with the butter and crème fraîche folded in. They make it easier to mash the potatoes finely and avoid clumps.

Another thing you can do to shorten the prep time is to skip the second bake. Simply fold in the lobster, press everything back into the potato, top with all the extra lobster and herbs, and serve. The texture will look a bit more rustic, but the flavor will be just as good.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: unless you are buying your whole lobster fresh, all lobster tails you can buy are likely frozen or previously frozen. So there's absolutely no issue with buying frozen lobster tails for this recipe. You do need to ensure you thaw them out fully before attempting to extract the meat, but otherwise, there's no issue with using them.

You also can buy already extracted and frozen lobster meat, which works here especially well because when we saute it with aromatics, it will revive it. As with the tails, thaw the meat overnight in the fridge, pat it dry before cooking, and you're good to proceed with the rest of our recipe.

You can also go with other cuts of the lobster. Whole lobster claws and knuckle meat are actually wonderful in this recipe, because they have a slightly sweeter flavor and a more tender texture, which means they shred beautifully into the filling. This is actually the meat you eat most often in lobster rolls. If lobster feels a bit out of reach right now, but you still want to get the same luxe feeling, you can use large shrimp or langostinos, or even king crab meat, which requires minimal time in the pan.

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