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Everyone loves stuffed potatoes at restaurants, but why can’t you enjoy them at home? With this sausage stuffed potatoes recipe, you can make the appetizer of your dreams in no time at all.
Don’t forget to make your own Italian Seasoning to use when making sausage-stuffed potatoes! If you have leftover mushrooms and sausage why not also try these Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms?
Sausage Stuffed Potatoes
Baked potatoes are one of the tastiest simple meals imaginable, but what’s stopping you from going the extra mile and making it something even better?
With some sausage, vegetables, and a whole lot of cheese, you can turn some simple potatoes into an appetizer that you would gladly pay $15 for in a restaurant.
Feel free to play around with the actual ingredients you add to your potatoes, but use this recipe as a base to build your very own perfect stuffed potato.
What To Do If You Can’t Find Ground Sausage Mixture
While actual sausages are always available in pretty much every supermarket, you might have a bit of a harder time finding actual ground sausage meat.
This is because of the fact that ground sausage meat is really not used in home cooking very much, as not everyone really wants to make their own sausages.
If you struggle to find ground sausage mixture at your local supermarket, there are a number of alternatives you could reach for.
The simplest would probably be to just grab the plainest, least-flavored sausages you can find. Try and avoid anything with particularly intense flavors, so nothing listed with “applewood smoked” or anything like that, unless you want those flavors in your sausage stuffed potatoes.
If you don’t want to have to deal with the additional flavors that come from pre-made sausages, then try using ground pork mince instead.
Pork mince differs from ground sausage mixture in that pork mince is unprocessed and a lot looser. Since it is basically just ground-up pork, the meat is a lot more separate and requires mixing together and a bit of working it to be able to turn it into a ground sausage mixture.
Another great tip for finding any kind of meat is to find a local butcher and ask them! Even if they don’t personally keep it in stock, they will likely know where to get it.
How To Tell When Your Potatoes Are Cooked
Baking potatoes in the oven are definitely the easiest way to get them cooked, as you can just leave them in the oven until they’re done.
They won’t really overcook that much if you leave them in the oven too long, but the skin has the potential to burn if you aren’t being careful with them.
If you want to make sure that your potatoes don’t get too browned, the easiest way to tell whether or not they are fully cooked is to give them a poke!
A fully cooked russet potato should have a good amount of give to it when you poke its flesh, but not so much that your finger goes directly through the skin and into the burning hot flesh.
If you don’t want to risk a finger burn, you could also try just poking it with a knife, or anything long and sharp.
Once completely cooked, the knife should slide straight through with almost no resistance. If you can get your knife all of the ways into the middle of the potato, then your potatoes are done!
What To Do With Leftover Potato Tops
This recipe leaves you with the top halves of the potatoes as spare parts, but that doesn’t mean you need to throw them away!
Here’s what to do with your leftover potato tops, so that nothing is wasted.
- Small Batch Of Skin-On Fries
If you happen to have some oil handy, why not consider simply frying them up? Though they will look a bit more like wedges than actual fries, the top parts of your potatoes will turn into tasty, crispy fries that make for a perfect snack.
- Garlic Roast Potatoes
Requiring a bit more effort, try dicing up your potato tops and then roasting them in the oven for about 15 minutes with some salt, olive oil, and plenty of garlic! They will become a tasty, garlicky treat, perfect as a cooking snack!
- Mix Them Into The Stuffing Mixture!
Perhaps the most obvious choice is to just dice up the tops of your potatoes and mix them into the sausage and potato filling? It will add a little bit of extra texture, not to mention some much-needed fiber.
Some people might not want to eat the cut-up potato tops, so make sure to cut them up nice and fine if you are serving them to guests.
Looking for more delicious Appetizer recipes? Try these out:
• Sausage Balls Recipe (Classic Bisquick Sausage Balls)
Happy Cooking!
Love,
Karlynn
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Sausage Stuffed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 4 large russet potatoes
- ½ pound coarse ground sausage mixture
- ¼ cup yellow onion (chopped)
- 2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
- ¼ cup green pepper (diced)
- ½ cup fresh mushrooms (diced)
- 1 Tablespoon butter (salted)
- 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
- ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon parsley – chopped
- ⅓ cup butter (salted)
- ¾ cup grated cheddar cheese (¼ reserved for topping)
Instructions
- Wash the potatoes, poke them all over with a fork and pat dry.
- Bake the potatoes at 400° for 50-55 minutes.
- In a frying pan brown the sausage over medium high heat for about 10 minutes until cooked. Drain the fat and place the sausage meat in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Add the onions, garlic, green pepper, mushrooms and 1 Tablespoon butter to the frying pan. Cook on medium heat until tender, about 5-8 minutes. Add the tomato paste, Italian seasoning and parsley, stir to combine.
- Add the vegetable mix to the bowl of meat mixture and mix well. Add a little bit of salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
- When the potatoes are done cut the top 1/3 off of the potato. Carefully scoop about 1/2 of the inside of the potato out while keeping the potato skin whole. Put the inside of the potato that you scoop out into a separate small bowl.
- Add the ⅓ cup butter and 1/2 cup grated cheese to the potato that is in the bowl and mash well. Add the sausage mixture and stir to combine.
- Fill the potato skins with as much filling as you can. sprinkle a little bit of cheddar cheese on top of each one. Place the potatoes back on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake at 400° for 10 minutes.
- Serve immediately garnished with fresh parsley and a dollop of sour cream.
Donna White says
Hi Karlynn. Love your style. I was thinking that if you cut the potatoes in half and followed the rest of the instructions then you would have 8 servings without any waste or having to do something with the top third. Sounds like a yummy appy.