camp meals

Twice-Cooked Potato Bomb

Loaded baked potato rebuilt from flakes, powder, and a bacon packet. No oven, no fridge.

calories
780
weight
5.5 oz
cal / oz
142
protein
24 g
serves
1, scales
prep
2 min
cook
5 min
total time
7 min
water
400 ml boiled
cost
$

Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.

  • Dinner
  • Canister stove
  • Alcohol / Esbit
  • Liquid fuel
  • Backpacking
  • Car camping
  • Basecamp
  • Winter / snow
  • Gluten free
  • Nut free
  • One pot
  • Pre-mix at home
  • Shelf stable
  • Dump and stir

Ingredients

Instant mashed potato flakes 1 cup
Powdered cheddar cheese 3 tbsp the stuff sold for popcorn works
Sour cream powder 2 tbsp this is the flavor that makes it read as twice-baked
Whole milk powder 2 tbsp
Butter powder or ghee 2 tbsp ghee in a small jar if you want real fat
Shelf-stable bacon crumbles 1/4 cup the salad-topping jar, not refrigerated bacon
Dried chives or freeze-dried green onion 1 tbsp
Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

  1. Boil 400 ml of water and take the pot off the heat.
  2. Pour in the dry mix a third at a time, stirring between additions. Dumping it all at once gives you lumps you cannot beat out.
  3. Let it stand two minutes. The flakes and the powdered dairy both need that time to swell.
  4. Stir in the bacon crumbles and chives. Add water by the splash if it stiffens past what your spoon likes.

A twice-baked potato is two separate things: a fluffy loaded filling and a crisped shell. On trail you can only have the first one, so this recipe stops pretending otherwise and builds the filling in a pot. Potato flakes stand in for scooped potato, and the sour cream, cheddar, milk, and butter all come as powders that rehydrate in the same water.

The powdered sour cream is doing more work than it looks like. Cheese powder alone reads as boxed macaroni; the sour cream is the tang that makes the bowl taste like a baked potato instead. Bacon goes in at the end and stays dry until then, because that is the only texture contrast left once the shell is gone.

Packing

Everything dry except the bacon goes in one bag at home. Bacon crumbles ride separately so they stay crisp instead of turning to grease in the mix.

Variations

  • A foil packet of chicken turns it into a full dinner without changing the water.
  • Skip the bacon and it is vegetarian, though not vegan — the dairy powders stay.
  • Hot sauce or a pinch of smoked paprika covers for the browned top you are not getting.

https://domesticsuperhero.com/web-stories/easy-twice-baked-potatoes-in-the-oven