Super Bowl Hasselback Potatoes
I’ve never been a big potato person. Didn’t matter if they were mashed or roasted, baked or fried, I just never liked the taste or the texture. It didn’t matter if you bathed them in salt or sour cream, bacon or chives. If it was a white potato, I was out. But those orange sweet potatoes… if you mashed or roasted up those babies, I was all in.
Unfortunately sweet potatoes weren’t always an option. A lot of times the only choice were those yucky white potatoes. And believe it or not that’s still the case today. Now, I can’t say that I never eat potatoes. If they’re French fries and smothered in ketchup, I was and am all in. Or if they’re cut in half, roasted and smothered in salt, melted cheese and bacon, I’ll also have one… or ten. I mean, bacon and cheddar cheese pretty much make anything better! So, when I saw these cute little Hasselback potatoes from Josh Elkin of Recipe Champions, I knew I’d found a potato I could get behind.
History of the Hasselback
The Hasselback potato has been around since the 1950’s. (Although plenty erroneously believe they go all the way back to the 1700’s because the hotel it’s named after has been around since then.) It’s yet another way to cook and serve a potato. See, you take your potato and make several horizontal slices almost all the way through. Then you add some oil and salt and roast until tender. What you end up with is a potato that’s crispy on the outside while still being nice and soft on the inside. It doesn’t matter if you prefer your potato roasted or baked because the Hasselback is the best of both worlds. But the real reason these potatoes are so popular is because of all the different ways you can prepare them.
While seasoning the potaotes and drizzling them with oil is totally fine, there are so many other options. You could cover them with shredded cheese. You could add a variety of herbs and spices. You could even do what Elkin did, and stuff them with bacon. While the standard Hasselback is usually made with large Idaho potatoes, any potato can be made into these delectable little spuds. And since the Super Bowl is all about finger foods, little baby potatoes are the perfect choice for this recipe. Even though the potatoes are tiny, you can still stuff them with slices of bacon, and smother them with salt and shredded cheese. What you end up with are awesome cheesy potato bites that are better than the standard potato skin. See, instead of just the potato skin you get the whole dang potato. Serve them with a bowl of sour cream for dipping and you have the perfect finger food for the big game.
Notes
Adapted from Recipe Champions
Ingredients
- 1 pound mini Yukon Gold Potatoes
- 1 pound thick cut bacon
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon chives, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 385 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Lay two chopsticks on the counter. Place the potato between the chopsticks and cut slits into the potato until the knife hits the chopsticks. (So, at the end you'll have a sliced potato that's connected on the bottom.) Repeat this process until all the potatoes are sliced.
- Slice the bacon into tabs big enough to fit into each slit of the potato. Place the bacon into each slit of the potato and place on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining potatoes.
- Sprinkle bacon-filled potatoes with the garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper.
- Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until the bacon is fully cooked.
- Sprinkled the cheddar cheese over the potatoes and place back into the oven for another minute or 2 until the cheese has melted.
- Garnish with the chives, serve with sour cream and try not to eat them all yourself.
