Boom! Crispy bacon, vibrant kale, golden-crispy potato skins, and swizzly melted cheese right in your face, as it should be. Me likey mucho.
I have this thing and it’s called I like to get really up close and personal right from the start with the food photos. You just need to get yoself right up IN there and take a look at that yummy food. How else are you going to know what these cheese bomb potato skins will look like as they make their three-second journey from the plate up to your mouth? Grab it, gaze upon its cheesy-bacony-and-a-little-bit-of-bright-green-kale beauty, getting closer getting closer getting clo — and down the hatch.
And I pinkie promise that will be the first and last time the phrase DOWN THE HATCH will be publicly typed onto this food blog. Not okay.
These potato skins are a game-changer for me. I mean that literally – when Bjork watches football, my self-appointed “job” <– rough life –> is to make snacks and eat. Now that these cheesy bacon and kale potato skins are a thing that exist in my food life, the making and eating of game day snacks just got all happy-happy-joy-joy gimme all the cheese.
Also, there’s kale nestled in there. No, like K-A-L-E. What kind of hipster do I think I am, anyways? I got on a healthy pesto thing this summer and I still haven’t gotten off that train. The thick, creamy, garlic-punch kale filling for these potato skins is the perfect way to make them into less of a greasy junk food and more of a filling meal that you can feel semi-food-responsible for eating. Plus, all that bright green in your life. It’s hot.
Pinch of Yum has a special relationship with potato skins. Not me – I mean I love them a really big lot and did I get all the bacon bits off of my face? – but seriously, potato skins have WORKED IT over the life of this little food blog.
I made this recipe for Healthy Sweet Potato Skins in when I was just a Baby Food Blogger back in 2011, which was also around the time when I also bought my first pair of jeggings, which was also around the time when I started talking about things like buying my first pair of jeggings on my FOOD blog, which started the downhill slide into talking about rando life tidbits along with food in almost every post. Which reminds me – thank you for sticking with me and all my wordssss. Oh dearie me you guys are the best.
Those old school sweet potato skins launched Pinch of Yum into a new level of blog traffic *NERD ALERT* because the founder of Pinterest’s mother pinned them to one of her boards with all those mils of early Pinterest followers, and for whatever reason (uh, I dunno, like cheese and bacon?) people loved them. Okay, maybe it was a tie for how much people loved them and how much people loved to leave educational comments about the recipe’s health-o-meter. Lesson: sometimes you gotta stir the pot to get things moving, and that post started a nice big stir for Pinch of Yum.
Food bloggers will get this: because they were popular, I got sick of them. I got sick of even hearing about them. Yay! More traffic! More links! Healthy Sweet Potato Skins! *bored face* The same old thang forever. Because I was so over it, I took a hiatus from any and all potato skin making over the last two years.
AND I’M SO SO SORRY.
Why-hy-hy-hy? Think of all the bacon-sprinkled cheesy potato skin eating I missed out on. Or don’t – it’s too devastating. I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I was too hungry to function normally for the last two years. I must have forgotten that potato skins are the perfect SnackMeal (!! my fave !!) and that they are inviting you to please eat all of the most delicious foods together in cute little boat form and also please enjoy yourself a blanket of melted cheese on top.
These cheesy bacon and kale potato skins are just the ticket – they are baked to golden brown crispy potato skin perfection (and I mean seriously CRISPAY) and filled with a healthy and vibrant garlic-and-Parm-laced kale pesto, sprinkled with crumbled bacon for the love, and topped with a little pinch of shredded cheese that will melt in the oven to make the whole thing a little boat of bubbling, delicious, halfway healthy game day food.
Making up for the lost potato skin eating years starting in three… two…
Over and out.
Cheesy Bacon & Kale Potato Skins
- Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
- Yield: 10 potato skins – serving size is 1 skin 1x
Description
These Cheesy Bacon and Kale Potato Skins are loaded with a fresh kale pesto and topped with crumbled bacon and melted cheese.
Ingredients
- 5 slices bacon
- 5 medium russet potatoes
- 2 tablespoons oil, divided
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 5 ounces kale
- 3/4 cup almonds or pine nuts
- 1 handful basil leaves or other herbs (optional – see notes)
- 1 cup cooked chickpeas (optional – see notes)
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 2–3 cloves garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup any kind of shredded cheese – I used Chihuahua cheese
Instructions
- BACON: Fry the bacon until crispy. Transfer to a paper towel lined plate. When cool enough to handle, crumble or chop the bacon into small pieces. Set aside.
- POTATOES: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash and dry the potatoes. Rub or brush them with 1 tablespoon oil. Place on a large baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes. When they’re cool enough, slice the potatoes in half, scoop out most of the flesh (use for another recipe – yay mashed potatoes!), but leave a little bit attached to the skin to help them hold their shape. Melt the butter and combine with the remaining tablespoon oil. Brush the insides and outsides of the skins with the butter/oil and bake for another 5-10 minutes, skin side up, until nice and crispy.
- KALE: In a food processor, pulse the kale, nuts, herbs, chickpeas, olive oil, Parmesan, garlic, and salt until smooth.
- ASSEMBLY: Fill each of the potato skins with the kale mixture. Top with crumbled bacon and cheese. Bake for 5-10 minutes until ooey-gooey melty and delish. Sprinkle with extra bacon or herbs before serving to make it look extrafancy.
Notes
I like to put the chickpeas in the kale mixture because it helps to bulk it up and add some filling power to the potato skins. This would still work just fine without the chickpeas – it would just be a thinner kale pesto and it wouldn’t fill the skins as much.
If you don’t have any fresh herbs, don’t sweat it. I make versions of this kale pesto sauce stuff all the time and it works beautifully with fresh herbs like basil, but it can also hold its own in the flavor department without the herbs.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour 20 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: baked potato skins, bacon and kale potato skins, potato skins
I haven’t had potato skins in so many years and these look amazing! Totally new and fresh ideas. Thanks!
Enjoy, Suzanne!
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They are looking so yummy and delicious i want to try them. Thanks for sharing. I will try hem today only.
My pesto didn’t come out very flavorful, I can only taste the pine nuts and it’s very thick, do you know why this might be? I continued to add oil but the texture didn’t change and just made it taste greasier. I didn’t have any basil so I used parsley and cilantro.
I made around 4 dozen of these for my birthday party, using baby potatoes. I wasn’t sure how people would like them, but I knew that both my husband and myself would eat any leftovers. They lasted, oooh, maybe 15 minutes. People were squabbling over who would get the last one! And several guests wanted the recipe, so I’ll be sending them the link to your website. And I used the leftover scooped out potatoes to make cheesy potato pancakes which I served with smoked salmon and sour cream, so nothing got wasted. Your recipes are awesome!
Love that idea to use up the leftover potatoes! Yum!
These are probably the best looking potato skins I have EVER seen. Love that you used kale too – definitely something that I need to add next time I make potato skins. Thanks for the idea!
Thanks Thalia!
Yum yum! Great recipe. The pictures are really mouthwatering!
Oh my goodness. I heart these right. now! We make a version of that pesto pasta in these parts, and I can TOTALLY see the deliciousness of it in POTATO SKINS!! Yum. I too love football. Translation: I too, love to eat football food. These are now on the list.
Delicious! Thanks for the recipe!
I made these without cheese or bacon for vegan guests. I didn’t have any pine nuts so I used hazel nuts. They were a big hit.
Nicely done Joe! Love that it worked even without the usual vices: cheese and bacon. 🙂
Loved hearing about/reading the sweet potato skins/Pintrest-Founders-Mom. It’s fun to see what Pinch of yum was like back then….
I have to admit I’ve gotten kinda tired of kale lately. Actually, to be totally honest I’ve gotten to the point where I hate the very word kale. I know this probably makes me a foodie pariah; but it been so overdone. At one of our local healthy foodie stores I even found a book titled “Fifty Shades of Kale.” (It did make me laugh hysterically despite my horror.) However, I’ve gotta make an exception for these. Lindsey I’m pretty sure that only you could make me love another kale recipe. These look SO good and I can’t wait to try them.
It’s always fun to hear about bloggers’ first “BIG” post! It’s almost always the one we barely gave any thought to and just cooked/baked/ate in a “ho, hum” sort of way… Then a few days or weeks later realize it’s blowing up our stats faster than a hot air balloon. Which is awesome and incredible, but… Do we really want to be known as “that potato skins blog” or “that cinnamon roll blog” or “that cauliflower crust pizza blog” or “that oatmeal cookie blog?” (<– that's me…) Because then people expect us to churn out new twists on those recipes and our taste buds just want something new! (Or our hips might complain about all those cookies and cheese…)
Anyway, SO happy for you that you came back to potato skins just in time for football! And ohmygosh kale?? So awesome! Definitely want to give this (and all of your other amazing recipes) a try!
What a great recipe, Lindsay! And your pictures are beautiful as usually!
Thank you Olivia! Appreciate that 🙂
I know all about potato skins of course. But you know I just had a ding dong moment. I don’t think I have ever eaten any. I have an eclectic palate. Well lucky me I have a new experience ahead of me. And look at the delicious recipe to use for my first entry into the world of potato skins!
Beautiful photos – I love the pretty bright green of the pesto! These look and sound soooo delicious – especially inclusion of chickpeas in the pesto!
This looks absolutely delicious Lindsay! 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing! I can’t wait to try this for dinner.
Nice way to sneak something healthy into these yummy potato skins!! 😀
I haven’t had potato skins in ages and these cheesy bacon kale stuffed goodies should be the perfect ones to get me back in the game 😉
I do this sometimes…forget about something I used to love & then rediscover it with a vengeance! These sound well worth falling in love with again!
Yum, sounds delicious! BTW, the colors in this dish are beautiful.
Thanks Hailey! I was a little alarmed at the bright green-ness but I think it’s growing on me. 🙂
Lindsay, may I just say that your photography is the bomb diggity! I especially loved the picture collage of the progression of the potatoes.
All I could say was a chorus of oooh’s that kept getting louder and louder as I looked at each additional step. Yummy!
Thank you Mo! Trying to change it up a little bit and add more different types of images to my posts.. so I’m glad you like them.
I noticed you included the chickpeas to bulk up the filling, but left out the scooped out potato. Any reason you couldnt use the potato to bulk up the filling instead of chickpeas?
No – not at all! I’m not sure how the potato filling would be if you blended it with the kale pesto – I’m sure it would be fine but for some reason it makes more sense with chickpeas to me (maybe just because I blend them a lot to make hummus). I actually thought about using the potato filling and just decided not to because I still wanted them to be more like “skins” and less like twice baked potatoes. 🙂 But definitely doable with the potato filling too!
Oh EM GEEE!!!
Girl I love you! I’ve purchased your books! I’ve joined you both in your journey! And you are my HERO!
You’re my biggest inspiration and I can’t thank you enough for how much work you put into your blog…and how much information you’re willing to share to help baby bloggers like me.
I’m following you all over the place. Not a stalker I promise! Just a mum from Australia who you’ve motivated and inspired to become better!
Thank you Lindsay!
Lots of love Xxxx
Karina
You’re so sweet – thanks for the nice comment Karina!
Yum yummy! I love me some potato skins, and the addition of the kale and chickpeas are almost enough to make me think I’m eating health food! They’ve got to be enough to counteract the bacon and cheese, right? 🙂