Baked Potato with Cheese and Beans

There is a special place in my heart for a baked potato with cheese and beans. It is the dinner I grew up on, the lunch I make when I am on my own, and the meal I cook when I want something warm and filling without a trip to the shops. A proper jacket potato — crisp skin, fluffy inside — filled with hot beans and melted cheese is comfort food at its simplest, and it never lets you down.

This is my baked potato with cheese and beans, the way I make it at home. The potato is baked until the skin is properly crisp and the inside is soft as clouds, then it is split open, buttered, and filled with a spoonful of beans in a rich tomato sauce and a mountain of grated cheese. It is a one-pot, one-tray dinner that takes almost no effort, and it feeds you properly.

Watch: Baked Potato with Cheese and Beans

Prep time: 5 minutes | Cook time: 1 hour 10 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 large baking potatoes (Maris Piper or Russet)
• Olive oil, for rubbing
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tin (400g) baked beans in tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 200g mature cheddar cheese, grated
• 1 small onion, finely diced (optional)
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and black pepper, to taste
• Snipped chives or spring onions, to serve

Method

1. Start with the potatoes. Scrub them clean under cold water and dry them well — a wet potato will not crisp. Rub each one with a little olive oil and a good pinch of sea salt, then prick them a few times with a fork.
2. Heat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan). Put the potatoes straight on the oven shelf, not on a tray — the hot air needs to reach them from all sides, and that is how the skin goes crisp.
3. Bake the potatoes for one hour to one hour and ten minutes, until the skins are crisp and the insides give easily when you squeeze them gently with an oven glove. A properly baked potato should feel soft, not hard, and smell wonderful.
4. While the potatoes bake, warm the beans. Heat the butter in a small pan, add the diced onion if you are using it, and cook for three or four minutes until it is soft and sweet.
5. Tip in the tin of baked beans and the Worcestershire sauce, and let it simmer gently for five minutes, until the sauce thickens a little and the beans are piping hot. Season with a little salt and pepper, and taste it — it should be rich and savoury.
6. When the potatoes are ready, take them out and let them sit for two or three minutes. Then cut a deep cross in the top of each one, and squeeze the sides gently so the fluffy inside opens up like a flower.
7. Put a knob of butter into each potato first — it melts into the fluffy inside and makes it taste wonderful. Then spoon the hot beans generously over the top, right to the edges.
8. Pile the grated cheese over the beans straight away, so it melts into the hot sauce, and scatter the chives or spring onions over the top. Serve at once, with a spoon to scoop out the last of the cheesy beans.

Serving and Storage

Serve the potatoes the moment they are filled, while the skins are still crisp and the cheese is melting — a baked potato waits for no one, and the contrast between the crisp skin and the fluffy middle is the whole point. Leftover baked potato keeps in the fridge for a day, and reheats well in a hot oven. The beans keep separately for two days and are just as good on toast the next morning.

Tips

A few things that make a baked potato better. Do not wrap the potato in foil — foil steams the skin soft, and you want it crisp. A hot oven and a long bake are what make the inside fluffy; a short bake leaves it hard in the middle. And use a good mature cheddar — a mild cheese melts into nothing, while a mature one gives the beans a proper cheesy bite.

That is a baked potato with cheese and beans: five minutes of hands-on work, a warm oven doing the rest, and a dinner that tastes like home. Make it on a cold evening, when you want something filling and easy, and see if it becomes your comfort-food regular too. It is easy to make your own as well — a handful of sweetcorn stirred into the beans makes them go further, and a dollop of chilli sauce on top gives the whole thing a gentle kick. Some nights I swap the cheese for a spoonful of cottage cheese and a little black pepper, which is lighter but just as comforting, and when there are leftover roast vegetables in the fridge, they go into the potato too. The method stays the same, and the potato stays crisp and golden. If you try it, tell us on our Contact page — we love hearing what home cooks do with the recipes here.