Best Air Fryer Twice Baked Potatoes

Are you looking for delicious comfort food? It is simple, creamy, cheesy and it is served in a crisp and salty potato skin. You can use your meat or potato leftovers and they are great to be served as a side dish to a holiday or just a Sunday supper.

Twice-baked potatoes are basically a new way to eat the classic mashed potatoes but you will bring this dish to another level. Besides the mashed potatoes, we will add two types of cheese, ham, butter, and chopped green onion tails.

One more thing that I like in this recipe for the twice-baked potatoes is that precise measurements aren’t necessary. So they come great if you are just starting in the kitchen and looking for something easy to make. This is a safe recipe that you can’t go wrong with it.

I provide you with the precise measurements below but you can use them as a starting point. Feel free to adjust the stuffing mixture to your taste and to make it your own.

What You Will Find in This Post?

• What are the best potatoes to use for this recipe.
• How to stop the stuffing mixture to flow away from the potatoes.
• What to serve near these potatoes.

👩‍🍳How to Make Twice-baked Potatoes?

1. Bake the potatoes in the air fryer or microwave.
2. Cut the potatoes in halves lenghtwise and by using a spoon, remove the core from the potatoes.
3. Fill them with your favorite topping.
4. Bake them in the air fryer for another 3-7 minutes or until the cheese melts.

🥰 Why You Will Love This Recipe?

• If you have some baked or boiled potatoes, this recipe is great to use those leftovers.
• You can vary and adjust the filling according to your taste or the ingredients you have at hand.
• As the potatoes, cheese and ham are very consistent (a serving have a little more than 500kcal) it’s an inexpensive way to feed a crowd. And the best part? You can use some leftovers that you already have and to experiment with the stuffing mixture for those baked potatoes.
• This is a lot quicker than making the same recipe in the oven. It will take you less time and you don’t need to warm up the entire house.

🥘 Ingredients and Variations

• Potatoes. I preffer the russets potatoes because they have a thick skin that holds well the stuffing. Also, because they are high in starch, the stuffing also will be more fluffy. But of course you can use any potatoes that you have. The only thing is that the texture might slightly differ. If you plan to use them as an appetizer or as finger food, you can use baby potatoes to get a better look and a bite sized snack.
• Ham. You can use any type of ham you have, or you could easily replace it with bacon or another type of sausages. If you have some cooked meat leftovers, you can use even it.
• Cheese. I used a mix of Cheddar and Mozzarella, but you could easily replace them with any other type of cheese. I recommend to use a strong-tasting cheese to accentuate its taste and a cheese that stretches like mozzarella to make the texture more interesting.
• Green Onions. I used green onion tails for decoration and for an extra freshness. You could omit the green onion tails altogether or to replace them with other aromatic herbs such as dill, thyme or basil leaves.
• Butter. I used butter to add extra creaminess into the mix.
• Seasonings. I used a mix of salt and pepper, but you could consider using something like Italian herb mix or any other spices you prefer.

🍽️ Serving Suggestions

Considering that this dish contains already meat and cheese, it is already a complete dish. The only thing you could improve is to add a little dietary fiber that you can easily find in green salads.

👩‍🍳 Step-by-step Directions

This recipe is called twice-baked potatoes because we must first boil or bake the potatoes and then fill the potatoes with our stuffing and bake them one more time. If you have leftover boiled or baked potatoes, you can skip these first steps and save some time.

If you start from scratch like me, then wash the potatoes well and put them in the air fryer tray without sprinkling them with oil.

Quick Note: For this first step, if you want to hurry up the process, you can use a microwave to bake the potatoes in it. But for best results, I still recommend using the air fryer.

Bake the potatoes until they will become soft on the inside. You can check this using a toothpick. In my case, it took 30 minutes at 300°F / 150°C.

Quick Note: Baking time may vary depending on the size of the potatoes and your fryer model and size. Because of this, I will recommend starting to check if the potatoes are baked with a toothpick after 20 minutes.

After the potatoes are cooked, cut them in half, and by using a spoon, remove the core from the potatoes. Don’t throw away the core that you will take out of the potatoes, because we will use it later for the stuffing.

Pro Tip: Don’t make the walls of the potatoes too thin. Leave them about ¼”. So that they can keep the filling inside and not break the walls when baking.

Take a large bowl, and put in it the core of the potatoes you just took out.

Quick Note: You can use a fork to grind the potatoes now, or to make this step later when you will mix the rest of the ingredients.

Over the mashed potatoes add the cheese, ham, butter, finely chopped onion tails, and other ingredients that you want to use for the stuffing mix.

Season everything with salt and pepper. Then, mix all the ingredients well. If you didn’t grind the potato core earlier, you can do it now while you will mix the ingredients.

When the filling has become uniform, it is ready to use for our potatoes.

Fill the potato halves with the filling obtained in the previous steps.

Pro Tip: Do not be afraid to put the filling in abundance because at baking, the cheese will melt, and the filling will become more compact and smaller in size.

For extra texture and taste, over the potatoes add a few mozzarella slices.

Arrange the potatoes in the air fryer basket in a single layer and bake them again at 400°F (200°C) for 4-7 minutes or until the cheese melts.

Quick Note: Baking time may differ by the size of the potatoes, filling amount, your air fryer model, and size. Because of that, the cooking time is only an estimate only. After 4 minutes, remove the air fryer basket and check the double-baked potatoes. If is needed, please adjust the timing. I used the Cosori Air Fryer Basket 5.8QT, and in my case, it took 7 minutes.

In the end, you can sprinkle over some chopped green onions or other aromatic herbs you prefer to eat.

🏆 Expert Tips. What to Pay Attention On?

• Do not make the walls of the potatoes too thin, otherwise we risk to broke the potato skin at baking and the filling from the potatoes will flow down. Leave at least ¼” of a shell.
• Choose some potatoes that have a more crumbly texture like are Russet potatoes.

♻️ Make Ahead, Storage and Heating:

📋 Recipe Card: