Looking for a crowd-pleaser that is comforting and delicious for your next party? Meet the Loaded Mac Potato Skins. In theory this recipe will give you 12 loaded potato skins to share with friends, but in reality you’ll be seeing how many you can eat in the kitchen before you need to share. These gluten-free, vegan, and nut-free appetizers have yet to meet someone that didn’t want seconds.

Loaded Mac Potato Skins

• Prep Time:  10 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
• Total Time:  1 hour 40 minutes
• Course: Appetizer
• Cuisine: American
• Servings: 12 pieces

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Chickapea Vegan Mac
• 6 medium white potatoes
• 1 Tbsp avocado oil
• 1 tsp sea salt
• ¾ cup plant milk
• 2 Tbsp vegan butter
• 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 1/8 tsp chilli powder
• ¼ cup vegan cream cheese
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 1 Tbsp hot sauce

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Wash potatoes well and cut out any eyes or dirt spots.
3. Dry potatoes thoroughly.
4. Cut potatoes in half, lengthwise.
5. Rub potatoes with 1 Tbsp avocado oil and sprinkle with 1 tsp of salt.
6. Lay potato halves on a non-stick baking tray and bake for 1 hour.
7. When potatoes are cooked through, remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes.
8. Once cool, scoop cooked potato out of the skin, leaving ¼ inch of potato against each skin.
9. Increase the heat of the oven to 450°F and cook the skins for 10 minutes
10. Flip all the skins then cook the other side for 10 minutes
11. While the potato skins are baking, prepare Chickapea Vegan Mac (heat 8 cups of water in a large pot over high heat until boiling. Add pasta, decrease heat to maintain a gentle boil.  Stir and cook pasta for 5 minutes).
12. Drain the pasta and add it back to the pot.
13. Mix the contents of the vegan mac seasoning package, vegan butter, plant- based milk, nutritional yeast and sea salt into the pasta until combined.
14. Remove the cooked potato skins from the oven.
15. Fill each skin with 1 heaping tablespoon of Chickapea vegan mac mixture.
16. Change the setting on the oven to broil.
17. Return the stuffed potato skin to the oven and let the Chickapea vegan mac mixture brown slightly for roughly 3 minutes.
18. Remove the loaded skins from the oven and allow to cool slightly, until warm.
19. Top each portion with chilli powder, vegan cream cheese, hot sauce and green onion slices.
20. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Recipe Notes:

• This recipe can be served warm or at room temperature, not cold.
• The potatoes used should be low in blemishes and easy to clean. Organic polar whites were used in this recipe to good results.
• If the potatoes have any green spots, discard the entire potato as a toxin named solanine is present. Solanine can make people sick in small quantities and can be very harmful in high doses. 
• Tofutti cream cheese and Frank’s RedHot sauce were used as toppings on the Chickapea Vegan Mac.
• This recipe can be easily doubled or tripled for larger groups.