I LOVE a good loaded baked potato, and these twice baked sweet potatoes do not disappoint! I’ve been cooking a lot lately with sweet potatoes, they’re my new favorite ingredient to transform. My only negative on the sweet potatoes is that they’re always so big and come in the oddest shapes, which is fine when I’m just dicing them up, but makes things tricky when leaving whole! It definitely makes it hard to create a recipe with so many size and shape varieties. Just make sure you select potatoes that are close to the same medium size and shape for best results!

I roasted a whole bulb of garlic while the potatoes were cooking to add into the mashed sweet potatoes. I also added all of my favorite sweet potato seasonings, chili powder and smoked paprika, I just LOVE smoked paprika on sweet potatoes. Smoky gouda goodness gets blended into the mix, and everything is topped off with bacon, yum! These go super well with pork, especially my Slow Cooker Pulled Pork recipe. So good!

Smoky Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes with Gouda and Bacon

Servings 4 potatoes

Author Laura Doerr

Ingredients

4 medium sweet potatoes washed
1 bulb garlic
olive oil
salt and pepper
2 tbsp melted butter
2 oz cream cheese
1/2 tsp smoked paprika grated
1/2 tsp chili powder
8 oz smoked gouda cheese
4 slices bacon cooked, crumbled
tbsp fresh parsley minced

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Peel as much of the papery lining off of the garlic bulb without dismembering any of the cloves. Slice off the top of the entire bulb, exposing each garlic clove (not the end that holds them all together). Place on a sheet of foil, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Wrap in foil and place on baking sheet (same sheet you'll use for the sweet potatoes).
Poke the sweet potatoes all over with a fork (about 15-20 times) to help steam escape. Place potatoes onto a large baking sheet, and drizzle with olive oil and rub onto all sides of the potatoes. Season with salt. Place baking sheet of potatoes and garlic in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes or until potatoes are soft and cooked through. (keep oven on, but turn down to 350 degrees)
Allow potatoes to cool slightly so they are easier to handle. Slice a small narrow rectangle shape onto the top of each potato. Gently (to avoid breaking more skin of the potatoes) scoop out 2/3 of the potato into a medium mixing bowl, leaving a wall of potato with the skin to help keep its structure. Repeat with all potatoes. Keep skins on baking sheet for re-filling.
Unwrap the roasted garlic bulb and squeeze out the roasted cloves from the shells into the same bowl that the potatoes are in. Add in melted butter, cream cheese, smoked paprika, chili powder, salt and pepper, parsley, and about 2/3 of the grated gouda (leaving the rest of the grated gouda for topping). Mix all together with a hand mixer until well combined and you have a mashed potato consistency. You can use a hand masher too, especially if you like a more chunky consistency.
Gently scoop (or pipe using a plastic zip bag) the potato filling back into each baked potato. Top with remaining gouda cheese and crumbled bacon. Place back into a preheated 350 degree oven and bake for 12-15 minutes. Garnish with fresh parsley if desired.

Recipe Notes

The consistency of the potato filling will really depend on the size of your sweet potatoes. Try and find uniform in size medium sweet potatoes. Use your best judgment on butter and cream cheese to avoid the filling to be too wet, you want it to hold up nicely when you fill the potatoes back in. You can always add more in, but you can't take more out once it's too late!