Make Potato Volcanoes For An Eruption Of Flavor

The original version of potato volcanoes reportedly dates back to the 1942 edition of "Joy of Cooking." The decadent, stuffed take on potatoes featured mashed potatoes, butter, cheese, and egg yolks. It was rescued from obscurity when it was posted on Reddit a few years ago. Today's cooks have taken the basics of the original — combining potatoes and cheese — and brought them to the next level.

Modern potato volcano recipes skip the mashed potatoes and call for use of the whole potato instead. The potatoes are roasted, baked, grilled, or even cooked in a slow cooker or Instant Pot. Once cooked, the flesh is carefully scooped out of one of the ends. Now there's room to fill them with some cheesy deliciousness. The original recipe doesn't mention any particular cheese to use, and the more recent versions suggest cheddar, Parmesan, or a four-cheese blend. So use whatever cheese you'd like, and mix it with butter and the excavated potato. Scoop the mixture back into the potato skin and enjoy the explosion of flavor.

Several recipes for potato volcanoes add other ingredients to give the dish even more flavor. Potatos can be wrapped in strips of bacon, adding salt and smokiness to the meal. (You can use toothpicks to keep the bacon from slipping off in the cooking process.) And some suggest coating the bacon in barbecue sauce, which makes a nice contrast to the rich cheese flavor. A few dashes of hot sauce atop the volcano filling would also be great.

This is one of those dishes where you can't have enough cheese, so make sure to melt more of it on top of the potato volcano. In addition to using extra cheese, be sure to top off the potato volcano with sour cream and chopped chives or scallions. And go for some bacon pieces if you don't wrap the potatoes in bacon strips. Anything that works on a loaded baked potato would definitely be tasty on a potato volcano!