This recipe looks super fancy but it’s so easy to prepare, very easy to customise, and it’s so tasty!

What you will need:

• A bag of baking potatoes
• Olive oil (or other alternative oil)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Chilli flakes
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Vegan cheese (we used Bio cheese pizza shred and Sheese mozzarella shred)
• Vegan butter (we use Nuttelex)
• Chives to garnish (fresh or dried)
• Crispy onions / shallots (optional)

Firstly, wash your potatoes to make sure there is no dirt residue left. Pop these in a baking tray and drizzle liberally with olive oil. Flip them and coat them so the whole skin is covered. Now combine your salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder and chilli flakes together. You can eyeball this and adjust according to your tastes. Sprinkle your potatoes liberally with the mixture, flip and make sure all sides are coated.

Now you can pop them in the oven, we do them at 180 degrees for about an hour, flip them and give them another half an hour. All ovens vary so use your judgement, keep them in a little longer for extra crisp.

If you are concerned, poke your potatoes with a fork. If it slides through easily, they are cooked. The skin is up to you, you can have them super crispy, or softer. This part doesn’t matter too much as we are going to be crushing them in the tray to crisp anyway.

Once they are browned and crispy on the outside, grab a fork, a ladle, or something with a fly bottom and start crushing! These will be nice and soft now, so this shouldn’t be too hard. If you are struggling because your potatoes are large, break the tops of the potatoes with the fork and then crush them.

Drizzle with a little more olive oil and pop them back in the oven for another 15 mins.

Once the inside of the potato is toasted, grab your vegan butter and cheese and go nuts! We add a knob of butter first, then we apringkw with bio cheese as this has a very gooey consistency when melted. Then we sprinkles with Sheese mozzarella shreds as this again, has a nice gooey melt, but will get toasted on the outside to form a sort of cheese shell, much in the way dairy cheese would.

Pop these back in the oven to melt the cheese for around 5-19 minutes at the same temp. Keep an eye and use your judgement. If you’re using Sheese, or in fact most vegan cheeses, be aware – they don’t brown in the same way dairy does, so if it looks pale, don’t worry. Feel for that nice toasty crust on the top of the cheese and they’re done!

Plate a couple up, and top with your favourite toppings! A knob of butter is always good, and we garnish them with chives which gives a nice flavour.

This time we topped a few with crispy fried shallots which we found at our local supermarket in the Asian food section. They were all delicious, and can be customised with any of your favourite toppings. Sauteed garlic mushroom under the cheese could really veg up this meal, or even some baked beans for extra protein.

I really hope you have enjoyed this recipe, it’s one of my go to recipes when we aren’t having protein and veggie meals. It’s a really tasty treat and I feel like it would fool any dairy cheese lover!

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