Twice Baked Potatoes are a great side dish for your family and company. Easy to pre-prepare & all you have to do is slide them in the oven & relax.
I can’t count how many times I have pre-prepared dairy-free twice baked potatoes and had them in the refrigerator when company came over.
Then when the company arrived all I have to do is slide them in the oven and visit with our guests.
And when I make a couple for just me and my husband I sure get lots of praise.
What I’m getting at is that twice baked potatoes are enjoyed by everybody and they aren’t hard at all.
This time around I took some process shots just in case you’d like a little coaching. Especially if you’re a new cook. These photos will make your work even easier.
Check out the photos below and I’ll walk you through the steps.
Table of Contents
How to Make Vegan Twice Baked Potatoes
- Pierce and bake. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Rinse and scrub whole Yukon gold or russet potatoes with a vegetable brush, then use a fork to pierce each potato in several places (this prevents the potatoes from exploding during baking!) Place the potatoes in a casserole dish or baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through and the skins are lightly crisp. Remove from the oven and allow the potatoes to cool.
- Scoop the potatoes. Once they are cool enough to handle, use a sharp knife to cut a small slice from the top of each potato. Use a spoon to scoop the potato flesh out of the skins, taking care to leave as much of the potato skin intact as possible. We will be refilling these hollowed out potato boats later, so the less holes they have, the better! Scrape any potato flesh from the sliced tops too and place all of the scooped flesh in a large mixing bowl.
- Add other ingredients. To the potato insides, add plant based milk (I like to use almond milk or oat milk for this), vegan butter, vegan sour cream, sea salt, and black pepper. Use a potato masher to mash the potatoes and add-ins together, creating a creamy and cohesive potato filling. The mixture may seem a bit stiff, but it will become creamier once it bakes again.
- Add cheese. Sprinkle in half of your vegan cheese shreds and stir to combine.
- Fill the potato skins. Spoon the mashed potato mixture into the hollowed out potato halves, distributing it evenly all around. It may seem like a lot but you want them to be stuffed, so really mound ‘em up! Arrange your stuffed potato halves in a 9” x 13” casserole.
- Top with cheese. Sprinkle the remaining vegan shredded cheese on top of each stuffed potato.
- Bake again. Return the stuffed potato halves to your 350°F oven and bake for about 25 minutes, until the potatoes are hot all the way through and the cheese is melted. (NOTE: instead of baking, you could also refrigerate or freeze your stuffed potatoes, see the storage instructions below.
- Serve and enjoy! Enjoy your vegan twice baked potatoes right away with an additional dollop of vegan sour cream, if you like!
Watch Us Make Vegan Twice Baked Potatoes
Can You Twice Bake Other Potatoes?
- Truly, russet potatoes are the best for baking – especially twice.
- Yukon Gold potatoes are a yellow color and aren’t as starchy as russets. Starchy is good for baked potatoes though.
- Russets taste fantastic but you may need to clean up their skins some.
- The small colorful baby potatoes that are on the market now have many pretty color varieties with their purple, red and gold skins but they are small are hard to handle.
- Red potatoes have that pretty outside skin too with a bright white interior. The skins are very thin though and would be hard to scoop without tearing.
- Fingerling potatoes have nutty or earthy flavors with different varieties also being in different colors. Not good for twice baked but great for roasting.
Here’s one of the pics I used back in 2012 when I first introduced this recipe but this time around I added vegan cheese to help you with a variation. Here’s a picture right below!
These potatoes were made the exact same way but the dairy-free cheese was left out.
If you want to prepare the potatoes way in advance this recipe freezes great. It comes out just like you had freshly prepared them.
All ingredients are put together and stuffed into the potato shells and then placed into the freezer.
Your side dish is all done until you are ready to bake them for the second time so that you can eat up.
How to Store
- TO FREEZE:
- Pre-freeze the potatoes for about an hour before putting them in a container or freezer bags.
- This keeps the mashed tops from sticking to anything. When they are firm – take them out and package them according to any of the directions you would like to choose in my article Preparing Food for the Freezer.
- TO PREPARE AFTER FREEZING:
- Take them out of the freezer and put in your refrigerator in a casserole dish at least 24 hours before baking. I say put them in a dish because there will be some water in the bottom of the dish after defrosting.
- Just drain and you should even pick up each potato and carefully tilt to drain if necessary. They will bake up perfectly.
- Place in a preheated oven at 350° for 40 to 45 minutes until they are very hot all the way through.
- You can sprinkle a little paprika on top of ones with no ‘cheese’ to give a festive color.
Vegan Twice Baked Potato Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 baking potatoes, such as russet or Yukon gold
- 1/2 cup plant milk, unsweetened
- 1/2 cup vegan butter
- 3/4 cup vegan sour cream
- 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- 6 oz. shredded vegan cheddar style cheese, divided
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Rinse and scrub whole Yukon gold or russet potatoes with a vegetable brush, then use a fork to pierce each potato in several places (this prevents the potatoes from exploding during baking!) Place them in a casserole dish or baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until cooked through and lightly crisp. Remove from the oven and allow the potatoes to cool.
- Once cool enough to handle, use a sharp knife to cut a small slice from the top of each potato. Use a spoon to scoop the potato flesh out of the skins, taking care to leave as much of the potato skin intact as possible. Scrape any potato flesh from the sliced tops too and place all of it in a large mixing bowl.
- Add the plant based milk, vegan butter, vegan sour cream, sea salt, and black pepper. Use a potato masher to mash the potatoes and add-ins together, creating a creamy and cohesive potato filling. It may seem a bit stiff, but it will become creamier once it bakes again.
- Sprinkle in half of the vegan cheese shreds and stir to combine.
- Spoon the mashed potato mixture into the hollowed out potato halves, distributing it evenly all around. It may seem like a lot but you want them to be stuffed, so really mound ‘em up! Arrange your stuffed potato halves in a 9” x 13” casserole.
- Sprinkle the remaining vegan shredded cheese on top of each stuffed potato.
- Return the stuffed potatoes to your 350°F oven and bake for about 25 minutes, until hot all the way through and the cheese is melted. (NOTE: instead of baking, you could also refrigerate or freeze your stuffed potatoes, see the storage instructions below.
- Enjoy your vegan twice baked potatoes right away with an additional dollop of vegan sour cream, if you like!
Ginny McMeans
Hi Kate! I am so glad you are here! I hesitate to say that the potatoes will work by putting them in the oven before defrosting. I truly think they would not cook all the way through when the edges are done. A quicker version would be to make your potatoes stuffing the way you like (do not freeze olives) – the works and then put the stuffing only (no shells) into small hard sided containers that are both freezer safe and microwave safe. Do serving sizes. They have those with plastic snap lids at places like Ross’s and Marshall’s. Then you can take out a container and with the lid off start defrosting and cooking in the microwave. Stir after a couple of minutes (I am guessing time) and check every 2 minutes or so. They should be hot all the way through under 10 minutes. Maybe even 5.
Kate
Can you pull these out of the freezer and bake right away or microwave them right from the freezer? I considered cutting the potatoes in half and scooping them into half shells, then dressing them with some cooked tomatoes, black olive, onion, spices – the works! But my main issue is that I have a lot of health issues and travel a lot – so I used to eat a lot of quick vegetarian TV dinner meals… Now thanks to horrible food allergies I’m vegan and gluten free also. Not a lot of premade buyable options. I need to make my own, but I need to be able to pull them out in the evening or lunch and have them done that day within half an hour (or better yet sometimes 5-10 minutes.) thanks so much for your site – it’s a real blessing in my life. -Kate, age 23, Iowa-
Kate
Thank you very much! I’m just new to so much at once and I am mostly concerned with health risks of freezing and reheating. I don’t want to do anything that may hurt someone. I may just be being a little overly concerned with each detail too. Thank you again! Love the site so much!
Ginny McMeans
Thank you Kate. Yes, you should be careful with freezing and I am glad you are. Defrost in the refrigerator overnight and not on the counter and you will be fine.
Rebecca
Once defrosted and drained well… do you place in oven to cook right on the rack or do you use the casserole dish to bake them in?
Ginny McMeans
Hi Rebecca! You bake them right in the casserole dish. Works great.
Jillian
Twice baked and twice as delicious!
Natalie
YUM! I love potatoes and this dish looks so good and perfect for dinner. Cant’ wait to try it!
prasanna hede
These are so good!I just love the cheesy yummy potatoes!
Bintu | Recipes From A Pantry
What a great idea to have these on standby! I’ll definitely be making some of these and popping them in the freezer
Chichi
This is a nice twist to having mashed potatoes. In its own jacket nice. I love mashed potatoes and my kiddies would love these. Thanks for the make ahead tips too.
Bella Marin
These are such a wonderful side dish for vegans and non vegans alike. they were a huge hit at my family gathering.
Ginny McMeans
That’s wonderful Bella! My whole family loves them too. Thanks so much for letting me know!
Ilona
Potatoes are my favorite. I can eat them all the time! Yummy!
Juli
These look so good! I have always loved twice baked potatoes but stopped making them when we went dairy free. Now seeing this I am definitely going to make these for my family!
Pam Greer
These sound delicious! I imagine it would be wonderful to have these in the fridge, ready to pop in the oven at a moment’s notice.
Andrea Metlika
Great recipe. My entire family will love these.
Emily
I really appreciate the detailed instructions. Thank you!
Lauren @ A Nerd Cooks
My stomach is seriously growling as I look at these photos. Twice baked potatoes are pretty much as good as it gets. I love that they can be made ahead of time, too!
Amy B
How would these turn out if I skipped the dairy free sour cream?
Ginny McMeans
They will still be good with a couple of changes Amy. Add a bit more dairy free butter, milk and salt. This is to keep the moisture they need as mashed potatoes would and add a litle more seasoning for taste.