Have you ever made Potato Skin Nachos, the real food version?

(Enjoy today's recipe/guest post from Erin of Eat Real Stay Sane.)

You know when you're ordering your meal at a nice restaurant and the waitress asks you if you want an appetizer? Most of the time we say no, BUT if there are potato skins on that menu there is no debate – we say yes every time.

We're kinda sorta maybe TOTALLY OBSESSED with potatoes in our house. Which is one reason why we will never turn Paleo… plus I just love my sourdough bread way too much!

We eat mashed potatoes, hash browns, and just like Kelly, we deep fry our potatoes in beef tallow for french fries!  (Think that's nuts?  Reads more about healthy fats here.)  Did you hear that McDonalds used to use tallow with their french fries? Too bad eating fast food is a death sentence now.

Speaking of a death sentence, when we switched to a real food diet, Cameron and I honestly felt like we couldn't eat anything! We tossed out all the processed stuff (which was most of our pantry and freezer) and we ate basically eggs for a week until we learned about stuff we COULD eat.

We got through the initial starvation period and started learning how to switch out the bad ingredients in our recipes for the good ingredients. We've learned to make treats like cookies, brownies, and chocolate to sate our sweet tooth. We also make other “forbidden” foods like onion rings and sweet and sour chicken.

Cameron and I feel like if you can't eat the food you love, then life just isn't worth living. Okay maybe not that extreme… maybe 🙂

Another obsession of ours: nachos! So we did the only logical thing — we combined potatoes and nachos into one amazing real food meal.

The best part? It's healthy! If you didn't know that you could make a fried, potato-y, cheesy meal with sour cream that could be healthy, then you're in for a treat. In fact, making foods like this, from home, from scratch, with high-quality ingredients is the secret to staying sane while eating an insanely healthy diet.

Potato Skin Nachos

Ingredients:

• 4 Organic russet potatoes (about 3 pounds)
• Olive oil to cover potatoes (click here for how to get a discount on the olive oil Kelly recommends)
• About 3-4 Tablespoons melted pastured butter or ghee
• Sea salt to sprinkle on skins (find real sea salt here)

Toppings for potato skins:

• Crumbled bacon (find safe, healthy meat here)
• Grass-fed cheese
• Organic chopped tomatoes
• Chopped green onions
• Sour cream
• Chopped jalapenos
• Organic chopped different colored peppers
• Or just add some of your favorite salsa (Here's a yummy fresh and colorful salsa recipe)
• …and whatever else you want!

Instructions:

Clean potatoes and rub them in olive oil. Bake at 400° for 1 hour, flipping halfway through.

Cut potatoes lengthwise in half and scoop out most of the potato. Save insides for making mashed potatoes another time.  Then cut each potato skin in half width-wise, and then each of those into 3 pieces lengthwise (basically, we just cut it into small triangles so they'd be like nachos).

Spread the potatoes on a cookie sheet skin side up and spread melted butter on skins and sprinkle with salt.

Set oven to broil and cook until crispy about 3-5 minutes.  Flip skins over and cook until edges begin to darken, another 3-5 minutes.

Add desired toppings. Broil until cheese has melted.  Add sour cream and serve immediately.

Thanks Erin!

Related:

• Here's a similar recipe from a while back:  Double Cheesy Potato Boats
• Click here for MANY more recipes to look through
• Here are more appetizer recipes

Erin and Cameron Smith, owners of Eat Real Stay Sane, teach people how to adopt a healthy lifestyle that includes eating real food, eliminating toxins, and overcoming chronic illness. The secret for them has been to cook homemade substitutes of foods they like – but with healthy ingredients. Get their free ebook, “17 Guilty Pleasure Recipes Without the Guilt.” You can follow them on Facebook and Pinterest.