Wingin’ It: Loaded potato skins to take on the New York Jets

Where there’s football, there’s food. There are many great options in the category of “traditional fare” but you might be in the mood for something different. Wingin’ It has you covered with a new Buffalo sauce-inspired recipe every week of the Buffalo Bills’ season. Get ready to win big in your kitchen as the Bills get ready for the New York Jets!

What do potato skins have to do with NYC or the Jets? Hell, I don’t know. This is gotta be what, the 100th time we’ve done this city. So it’s become less “inspired by the opponent” and more “what sounds good?” So as the weather turns cooler I thought it might be nice to crank up the oven and shove a bunch of food in other food to make it resemble a small garbage dumpster.

Buffalo chicken filled potato skins

Serves: 5-8
Active Time: 1 - 1¹⁄₂ hrs
Total Time: 2 - 2¹⁄₂ hrs

Ingredients

8 Tbsp unsalted butter, divided (3 and 5)
11 Tbsp hot sauce divided (3 Tbsp and ¹⁄₂ cup)
Salt
Garlic Powder
5 large baking potatoes
¹⁄₂ large onion, finely chopped
¹⁄₄ tsp rosemary
¹⁄₂ tsp sage
1 lb cooked chicken, diced
Toppings (cheese, bacon, tomatoes, whatever you like)

Directions

You will need: Cookie sheet, cooking spray or similar, gloves, aluminum foil

1. Make the first sauce: Stir and combine 3 Tbsp of butter and 3 Tbsp of hot sauce in medium sauce pan on LOW. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature
2. Make baked potatoes: Preheat oven to 350ºF
3. Prepare potatoes by washing and poking holes all over them with a fork
4. Roll potatoes in the first wing sauce, sprinkle with salt and garlic powder to taste and cover each potato in aluminum foil*
5. Set aside remaining sauce in a small container. The sauce pan can be rinsed and used again for the second sauce in just a few minutes
6. Place potatoes on foil lined cookie sheet and bake in oven for at least one hour**
7. Prepare Buffalo Chicken while the potatoes are baking: Saute onions in remaining butter (5 Tbsp) on MED/HIGH until onions turn translucent
8. Add remaining ¹⁄₂ cup of hot sauce and turn heat to LOW
9. Stir in rosemary and sage for 1 minute
10. Add chicken to hot sauce and stir for periodically for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside
11. Wait for potatoes
12. Keep waiting for potatoes
13. Check potatoes carefully using a fork** for desired level of doneness
14. Set potatoes aside to cool
15. Preheat oven to 475ºF
16. Cut each potato in half. Hollow each half out, leaving ¹⁄_4” of potato to retain shape***
17. Place skin side up on a foil-lined, greased cookie sheet
18. Brush reserved wing sauce from step 5 on each skin
19. Bake for 28 minutes, flipping every 7 minutes. This time can be adjusted for desired level of crispiness and could be extended if you chose to work with slightly underdone potatoes
20. Once they’re crispy enough for you, fill with the chicken/onion/sauce mixture and top with desired ingredients
21. Return to oven for 5-10 minutes

Wingin’ It Tips

• *Since this likely does mean working with hot sauce by hand, gloves are advised.
• **If you’re using larger potatoes they probably will not be completely done at the hour mark and could require up to 90 minutes. Moving forward with potatoes that are slightly underdone will make it easier for the skins to retain their shape once hollowed out, but will require longer cooking times in the second phase.
• ***You can use these for mashed potatoes pretty easily

BONUS thing! Mashed potatoes

I know this isn’t a picture of mashed potatoes but I didn’t think that was very photogenic. With whatever you scoop out, I recommend adding milk (about ¹⁄₂ cup) and a few tablespoons of butter. Salt, pepper, Parmesan/Romano blend all work well too. If you wait for the baked potatoes to be fully done, there’s not much to this. Heat, and stir until the consistency is the way you like it.

If you’re like me and deliberately undercooked your potatoes to get better structure for baking here’s your tip: Mash the **** out of the chunks before you start cooking them. If you don’t, or don’t have a masher you’ll want to add a LOT of water to the above and basically boil them like crazy. And they’ll still take awhile. Either method will give a similar result but if you don’t want to spend a ton of time in the kitchen, mash away.