It’s almost the 4th of July, which means it’s time for some fireworks and some good food!  Everyone loves to chow down on this holiday, so we think it’s fitting to share a crowd-pleasing recipe that we recently made.  Potato skins are classic finger food, because they combine a bunch of different things that people love.  Most potato skins are also made with bacon, which makes them off limits for Miriam, but in fact there’s no reason you need to make them with meat.  To that end, we recently adapted this recipe from the New York Times to sub in veggie bacon, making our potato skins entirely vegetarian.  If that sounds like some delicious vegetarian cookout fare, follow along to see how you can make these yourselves.

You’ll need:

• 4 russet potatoes
• Vegetable oil
• Olive oil
• An 8-ounce block of cheddar cheese
• Scallions
• Sour cream
• Hot sauce (we used Frank’s RedHot)
• A 5-ounce package of veggie bacon (we like Lightlife and Morningstar Farms)

First, scrub and pat dry your potatoes, then rub olive oil on the outsides and put them on a baking sheet lined with foil to cook at 400°F for an hour.

When the potatoes are out of the oven, you’ll want to cook all your bacon according to the package directions – we used Lightlife here, so we placed 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large cast iron skillet and warmed it over medium heat, then cooked all the strips for 2 minutes on each side, making sure they didn’t overlap.  Once the bacon was done, we placed it on a plate lined with paper towels to cool.

Now cut each potato into four wedges and use a spoon to scoop out most of the insides, but leave about 1/4 inch of flesh attached to the skins (you can save what you scoop out for something else, like mashed potatoes or to stuff into dumplings).  Next, use a pastry brush to coat each wedge in some of the cooking oil left over from the bacon.  Grate up your cheddar and scatter it on top …

… then crumble your bacon strips and add those to the potatoes as well.

Turn your oven’s broiler on low and place in the potatoes, keeping them in until the cheese is melted.  Take them out and chop up some scallions, then top with hot sauce and sour cream.

Now your potato skins are ready to eat!

It was great to be able to enjoy an appetizer that we don’t usually get to have, and we liked being creative and finding a way to make some vegetarian potato skins.  This definitely isn’t health food, but for holidays this kind of pub food is a fun treat that doesn’t need any meat to taste good.  It does take a while for the potatoes to cook, but after they come out of the oven it’s fairly simple to cook your bacon, scoop out the potatoes, grate some cheddar, chop a few scallions, then broil everything until you get some cheesy, rich potato skins.  Have fun for your holiday weekend, and enjoy some great vegetarian fare like this!