Super Loaded Baked Potatoes

Some nights I come home after work and I already have dinner all planned out, but some nights I come home and have no idea what to cook. Usually when that happens, I ask Lee what sounds good. Last week I had some chicken cooking in the Crock Pot, but had no idea what I wanted to do with it. I asked Lee and he said I should shred it and make bbq chicken. Barbecue didn't really sound good to me. I was thinking that buffalo chicken casserole sounded good. Lee was trying to get over a sore throat and he didn't want anything spicy.  Since we couldn't agree, Lee suggested that we make loaded baked potatoes. That way we could each have what we wanted. He's so smart! On this night, we even used paper plates and kept dinner simple. Here's how we made them: 

Ingredients 
1 lb. shredded, cooked chicken
6-8 potatoes
Butter
Your choice of sauce: Lee used bbq, I used Frank's Buffalo Sauce & ranch
Shredded cheese, we used colby-jack
Bacon bits, veggies, or any other topping that sounds good


To start, I used Mix and Match Mama's Perfect Chicken recipe. I cooked my chicken in chicken broth. Once the chicken is cooked, shred it with a fork. This night, I cooked a full pound of chicken, but I only shredded enough chicken for our 2 potatoes. We ate the rest of the chicken as left overs on salads and quesadillas later in the week. If you are cooking for a larger family, this recipe makes enough chicken to load up 6-8 potatoes.

Next, we stabbed our potatoes with a fork and cooked them in the microwave. Our microwave has a Potato button, but we flip them over about half-way through cooking.

Once your potatoes are soft, put them on a plate and cut them in half. Butter your potato, and add your chicken. Then add your sauce, cheese, and any other ingredients that sound good to you.

I made a buffalo chicken bacon ranch potato, so I used butter, chicken, buffalo sauce, bacon bits & shredded cheese. Then I microwaved my potato for about 15 seconds to melt the cheese, and topped with ranch.

Lee had a bbq chicken potato, so he used butter, chicken, bbq sauce, and shredded cheese.

Enjoy! You can personalize this anyway you want. Some other potato ideas we have tried in the past: Mexican potato with chicken, queso, and salsa. Regular loaded potato with butter, bacon, cheese, sour cream, & green onions. Instead of cooking crock pot chicken, you can even use left-over ham, chicken, sausage, steak, etc, and use this as a way to get rid of your left-over meat or veggies, The options are endless!