Broccoli and Bacon Cheesy Stuffed Potatoes

Name: Broccoli and Bacon Cheesy Stuffed Potatoes | Taylor Farms
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 4 Russet potatoes; 1 cup water; 6 slices bacon or pancetta, diced and cooked; 1 cup Taylor Farms Broccoli Florets, steamed; 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese; ¼ cup butter; Scallions and sour cream for topping (optional)

Broccoli. Bacon. Cheese. Potatoes. Optional sour cream. Honestly, we could probably just stop there and call it good, but you’re already here and reading this, so let’s take it a little further. This aptly-named Broccoli and Bacon Cheesy Stuffed Potatoes recipe contains just about everything one could want from a one-dish meal—vegetables, starchy potatoes, a bit of salty protein. Oh, and butter.

If you have a pressure cooker at the ready, we have great news: you are under half an hour away from enjoying the very definition of comfort food: Broccoli and Bacon Cheesy Stuffed Potatoes—a recipe made even easier with a bag of Taylor Farms Broccoli Florets that are already washed, trimmed, and ready to get cooking.

Ingredients

4 Russet potatoes
1 cup water
6 slices bacon or pancetta, diced and cooked
1 cup Taylor Farms Broccoli Florets, steamed
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
¼ cup butter
Scallions and sour cream for topping (optional)

Directions

Pierce potatoes with a fork and place them in a pressure cooker with the trivet on the bottom. Pour water into the bottom of the pressure cooker and cook for 20 minutes on high.
While the potatoes cook, fry your bacon or pancetta and then crumble or cube. Steam the broccoli florets until just tender enough to pierce with a fork.
After 20 minutes of cooking, carefully release the pressure and remove the potatoes from the pot. Set aside to cool.
When they’re cool enough to handle, slice the potatoes in half and add butter to each, salt and pepper to taste. Carefully mash the potatoes and butter together.
Top with cheese, broccoli, and crumbled bacon. Serve with sour cream and scallions on the side or top the potatoes just before serving.

Bacon vs. Pancetta: What’s the Difference, Anyway?

You might have noticed that this recipe allows you to use either bacon or pancetta (not that you need a recipe to grant you the option to enjoy either one). Bacon is certainly more common, but are the two really all that different? Well, that depends on who you ask, so we’ll merely provide the facts and let you decide.

Both bacon and pancetta are typically made using pork belly. Both are generally sliced thin, but you’ll often find thick-sliced bacon right alongside its thinner counterpart in the grocery store as well. Both of them are also cured, meaning they’ve been preserved with salt to draw out excess moisture. Pancetta curing sometimes involves other spices in the process, too (such as sugar, black pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon), but plain ol’ salt-cured pancetta is the most common.

Aside from the slight differences in curing, the main aspect that sets pancetta and bacon apart is smoking after the curing—bacon is typically cold-smoked after the curing process using aromatics like apple and hickory. That’s literally it.

And there you have it: you’re now informed enough to argue with yourself about which is best. Our advice? Try both and let your taste buds decide. Either way, it’s hard to go wrong!