Having people over to watch the big game this Sunday? If complicated and expensive aren’t words in your vocabulary, I'm definitely your girl because I'm all about simple and cheap without compromising on flavor.

My husband and I are foodies which means we're friends with fellow foodies and all of us love to share our recipe creations with each other which means I get to share them with you. It's the delicious gift that keeps on giving!

One of our friends told us about her baked and then fried loaded potatoes and we've been hooked ever since. Okay, I was hooked. My poor husband couldn't have them because he's allergic to dairy, but then we discovered dairy-free cheese and Jay's entire culinary world has been opened up. If you don't know about dairy-free cheese, it's made from ingredients like brown rice, tapioca starch, safflower oil, coconut oil, sea salt and more. Personally, I think it smells and tastes like melted plastic, but my husband doesn't know what real cheese tastes like and he thinks the dairy free stuff is pretty amazing and he especially loves that he can now have foods he never got to have before. Like lasagna, eggplant parm, and...baked and of course, baked and fried loaded potatoes!

Ever since we got an air fryer, we've avoided deep frying food. However, we tried this recipe in our in our air fryer and the potatoes were pretty horrible tasting. There are just some things that need to be fried in good old-fashioned oil.

Baked and Fried Loaded Potatoes

Ingredients:
Potatoes
Bacon, cooked and crumbled
Green onions, chopped
Cheddar cheese, shredded
Sour cream (optional)

Directions:
Wrap each potato in aluminum foil and bake for an hour at 350 degrees. After done baking, let the potatoes cool and then cut them in half and very carefully scoop out the insides. Set the insides aside in a medium-size bowl. Put the hollowed out potatoes in a deep fryer which has been set at 350 degrees for 2 minutes or until they're nice and crispy. While the potatoes are frying, mix together the cheese, green onions and bacon with scooped out insides that you set aside. After the potatoes have deep fried, let them cool and then scoop the bowl mixture into skins. Serve with sour cream.

More From 98.1 The Hawk