Baked potatoes are a quick and satisfying “comfort food” that CAN be healthy as well. Mary’s comment in “Cooking Potatoes in the Microwave” got me thinking about one of my favorite ways to eat baked potatoes.

In restaurants, you are often offered butter, sour cream, and bacon to go with your baked potato, and, of course, you can make them this way at home as a wonderful occasional splurge. But in my household, non-fat plain yogurt is more the norm. You get a similar “mouth sensation” without quite so many calories!

I bake the potato in the microwave, and then I give it a bash before cutting it in half.

This breaks up the fibers and makes it all easier to spoon out or eat with your fork. (Note: Be sure you put a clean cloth or paper towel between your fist and the hot potato or you will get burnt).

Then give it a squeeze and the potato should be nice and fluffy.

From there, I add a small sprinkle of salt and several twists from the pepper grinder.

Sometimes I then add about 1/3 cup of salsa. If you haven’t tried salsa on your baked potato, you don’t know what you are missing. There are so many really great flavors of salsa; you really can’t go wrong with any of them! It’s not necessary to heat the salsa. The potato is so hot the salsa will actually cool it down to the perfect temperature!

I then top it with about 1/3 cup of plain yogurt. If I have green onions in the house, chop them up and add them too. It looks great, and the flavor is fantastic!

When cutting green onions, remember the white part is much stronger than the green part!

What’s your favorite baked potato topping?

You can view and print this recipe here.

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