I am sure we have all enjoyed a delicious loaded baked potato at some point in our lifetime! Well, probably a little more than that if you Diamonds are foodies like I am! It’s delicious, decadent, and iconic at a steakhouse restaurant… which is where we usually find ourselves enjoying it most because I often feel like people have the idea that it would just be too over the top to make for a regular weeknight dinner at home. It actually isn’t as involved as you may think! You just have to cook up some crispy, savory bacon, and snip some fresh herbs on top to garnish everything off! It also doesn’t even have to be for a week day night. This is such a beautiful dinner side for a Saturday late night, date night with candles burning on the table, and red wine filled glasses. I think a baked potato goes with absolutely any meal, any day, anytime, and even more so when it’s loaded, and just gorgeous! 

Diamonds.. do not do a potato wrong when baking it! Don’t fall into the fad of being told to wrap it in foil and having a steamed potato instead of a seasoned, crispy, and fluffy baked one! All you have to do is grab a baking sheet, and make sure your potatoes are nicely washed off of any dirt, and grit! Lay the potatoes on a foiled lined baking sheet, and rub each potato with a generous amount of good olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder.

• Set the oven to 400 degrees, and pop those babies in for an hour!

When the potatoes come out of the oven and are fork tender, make a slit down the middle going from each side using a pairing knife. Once you make the initial slit, pinch the sides together, so that some of the potato from each side will rise up more into the middle.

Add a nicely measured pad of butter into each potato. I feel like you wouldn’t think to do this being that you’re not only just dolloping sour scream on top, but yes, even though we’re adding some greasy bacon, and fatty cheddar cheese.. we still need that bit of butter to flavor the potato itself underneath.

Sometimes when you’re at a high class steak restaurant grubbing on a huge baked potato with everything but the kitchen sink laid on top of it, you’ll still feel like it’s missing something. That something is the extra cheese! You Diamonds probably know exactly what I’m talking about when I say that they usually skimp out on the cheese that really should have been involved in the party! Lol. Most people will just put a sprinkle of cheese in the middle, and think that that is going to succulent, and here on Deep fried Diamonds, it does not! Load up on that cheese! It IS a loaded baked potato after all. 

It’s bacon time because who doesn’t love bacon?! Especially with potatoes! It’s like a peanut butter & jelly combination. It’s that good!!

• Fry the bacon in a sauté pan on medium low heat, flipping as it cooks on each side until it gets to your perfect vision of crispiness!

     This is how I love my bacon! 🙂

As we all know there’s no perfect loaded baked potato without sour scream, and if by some crazy change you don’t approve of sour cream, than use ranch. You definitely don’t want to miss out on that buttermilk flavor, and creamy texture in your mouth.

 Let’s make these gorgeous things look even more gorgeous! Garnish them all with a pinch of salt & pepper, chopped parsley, thinly sliced scallions, and a great big sprinkling of paprika. I adore paprika with potatoes as much as I adore them with eggs! This impeccable sight is exactly how we want a luxurious loaded baked potato for any occasion to look! If it looks like this Diamonds.. it was made with so much love, and is going to be the most delicious baked potato you’ve ever dug your fork into!

Have fun loading up your potatoes, and make sure you make your pairings just as delectable! 😉