Smoked Potato Skins
On February 03, 2021 (Updated May 11, 2024)
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These Smoked Potato Skins are everything you love in potatoes, with that fun restaurant twist. These are packed high with all the toppings so you can enjoy them as a side dish or main course!
What are Potato Skins?
Potato skins are a popular item in chain restaurants across the United States. They’re a hollowed out potato stuffed with toppings (usually cheese, bacon, and green onions) and baked to melty goodness.
I’m always a big fan of ordering potato skins as an appetizer and making them at home for family dinners. They’re filling, totally customizable, and delicious.
Homemade Smoked Potato Skins
As with everything else on Hey Grill Hey, we’re taking the classic homemade potato skin and cooking them on the smoker for an added bit of smoke flavor.
I also couldn’t resist topping these with some leftover Smoked Pulled Pork I had lying around as well as seasoning them with my Signature Beef Seasoning and Everything BBQ Sauce. These flavor combos were amazing, and the added pork turned these potato skins into a main course that fed my family to full contentment.
If you don’t have Beef Seasoning or my Everything Sauce around, NO STRESS! These potatoes will taste great with a simple seasoning of salt and pepper and your favorite BBQ sauce. Better yet – stick a few favorite sauces on the table and let everyone choose their favorites!
How to Make Potato Skins
Here’s how to make some killer stuffed potato skins:
- Cook the potatoes. First up, you gotta cook those taters. The way you choose to do this is completely up to you. I like the flavor of smoked potatoes, so I baked mine on my Camp Chef smoker preheated to 225 degrees F for 3 hours.
- Scoop out the potatoes. Slice the cooked potatoes and scrape out *most* of the potato. Whip up the scooped out potatoes with butter, sour cream, and Beef Seasoning (or equal parts salt, pepper, and garlic powder).
- Assemble. Season the scraped potato, then spoon a few Tablespoons of the whipped potato mixture back into the potato skin. Top with pulled pork, BBQ sauce, and shredded cheese.
- Smoke again. Place your stuffed potato skin back on the smoker, and cook for an additional 45 minutes to 1 hour until the cheese is completely melted.
- Eat! Garnish the potatoes with sliced green onions and any other toppings you desire. Eat immediately (though watch out for that super hot cheese!)
While these potatoes take a bit of extra time and effort, as I mentioned previously, they can play so many parts. They make awesome appetizers, sides, or even serve as a main dish. Oh, and these guys KILL at game day watch parties as well.
Tips for Making Smoked Potato Skins
Here are some tips for making these potato skins. The recipe is straightforward and pretty foolproof, but who doesn’t love a couple good tips to ensure your food comes out perfect?
- Make it work. These potatoes skins work great in the smoker, but also in your oven or air fryer. The most important step is getting those baked potatoes soft before scooping and filling, it really doesn’t matter how you do it! Then take them out to the smoker for the final kiss of smoky goodness.
- Use up those leftovers! These potato skins are perfect for using up leftover pulled pork, but they are also awesome with shredded chicken and Buffalo sauce, sliced brisket, or crispy bacon pieces.
- The potato matters. Classic Idaho russet potatoes are the tuber of choice for this recipe. Yukon golds are a little too soft with skin that is too thin and red potatoes are too waxy to make that filling fluffy.
Now get to it, my friends! Those smoked potato skins aren’t going to make themselves!
Popular Smoked Potato Recipes
Potatoes are the ideal side dish, and can we talk about versatility? Smoked, baked, mashed, grilled, sliced, cubed – the list goes on and on! However you like to enjoy your potatoes, why don’t you try out some of my popular smoked potato recipes below:
Smoked Potato Skins Recipe
Smoked Potato Skins
Ingredients
- 24 ounces Smoked Pulled Pork
- 6 small russet potatoes
- 4 Tablespoons salted butter softened
- 4 Tablespoons sour cream
- 2 teaspoons Signature Beef Seasoning or equal parts salt, pepper, and garlic powder
- ¼ cup Everything BBQ Sauce or your favorite BBQ sauce
- 8 ounces Colby jack cheese shredded
- 2 Tablespoons green onion sliced
Instructions
- Bake your potatoes. Preheat your smoker to 225 degrees F. Drizzle your clean russet potatoes with olive oil and season on all sides with salt. Place the potatoes on the smoker grates, close the lid, and smoke for approximately 3 hours, or until the potatoes are tender and cooked to an internal temperature of about 210 degrees F.
- Make the filling. Remove the baked potatoes from the smoker and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Slice the potatoes in half lengthwise. Use a metal spoon to scoop out a majority of the baked potato into a medium sized bowl, leaving about 1/4 inch thick edges of potato around the skin. Set the skins on a baking sheet and lightly season the inside of the potatoes with 1 teaspoon of the Beef seasoning. To the bowl of baked potato, add in the softened butter, sour cream, and the remaining teaspoon of Beef Seasoning. Whip with a whisk to create a smooth potato mash.
- Assemble your potato skins. Spoon approximately 3-4 Tablespoons of mashed potato filling into each potato skin. Top each potato with about 2 oz of the smoked pulled pork. Drizzle all of the potato skins with the BBQ sauce and then top each with a generous helping of shredded cheese.
- Smoke the potato skins. Place the baking sheet with the loaded potato skins onto the grates of your smoker. Close the lid and smoke for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the cheese is completely melted on top of the potato skins. Top the finished smoked potato skins with the sliced green onions and enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Came out perfect!! Used with the whisky bourbon pulled pork.