Jump to RecipeBuffalo and Blue Cheese Smashed Potatoes are the MVP any given Sunday!! An insanely easy appetizer to prepare that will have your crowd going wild!!!
If you are looking for an easy and budget friendly party appetizer you can’t go wrong with a smashed potato! They may be teeny tiny, but they are packed with flavor, highly addictive and dangerously easy to pop in your mouth!
Blue cheese and buffalo sauce are like rights of passage in my mind when I think of football party appetizers, obviously bacon is right up there too!! Sadly these pictures are not shown with the bacon element- why you ask!!?? Because when I served them at my last football party, they were literally GONE before I could snap a picture! YES, my friends are clearly savages!
These pictures are from my trial run, recipe testing on a regular weekday when while no crowd was hanging around me to snatch them up!! Of course, the bacon IS optional anyway.. but I will say that I highly recommend it!
How to Make Blue Cheese and Buffalo Smashed Potatoes:
Very simple: First you will need to preheat oven to 425 and line baking sheet with aluminum foil. Then add just enough water cover potatoes to medium sized pot and bring to a boil for about 20 minutes. They will need to be easily pierced with a knife. If your potatoes are not cooked through then they will be very hard to smash later on.
While the potatoes are boiling bake the bacon for about 10 minutes, or until very crisp. Remove from oven and lay bacon on paper towel lined plate. Discard aluminum foil and bacon fat. When bacon cools, crumble or chop into little bits. Set aside.
By now those potatoes should be ready, so remove pot from heat and drain the water. Transfer boiled potatoes to cutting board to slightly cool. Then using the bottom of a measuring cup or a fork, smash each potato until ¼-inch thick.
Place those smashed potatoes to your sheet pan (the same one you used to crisp the bacon) and arrange them in a single layer.
Now make the blue cheese crumble. I have to admit that my little trick with the blue cheese is brilliant and I have used it with my steak recipes for years. In order to stabilize the cheese so it doesn’t melt down into a gooey mess, I incorporate it with crispy, crunchy Panko breadcrumbs. The blue cheese will still melt, but it will hold together and be extra crispy.
Drizzle the smashed potatoes on the sheet pan with a little olive oil to help that crisping process along in the oven. Then take that blue cheese/ Panko mixture and crumble it over top of the smashed potatoes. Finally, drizzle with desired amount of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, AKA Buffalo Sauce and those puppies are ready to slide right into the oven!
Roast them at 425 degrees on upper half the oven for about 25 minutes, then remove and add the bacon, return to oven for another 5 minutes. If you cook with the bacon from the beginning I fear it would burn, so wait till the end and bake it just enough time to reheat.
When your potatoes look nice and crisp, you’re ready to go! Simply garnish with some fresh chives, and lay out sheet pan or serving platter in front of a hungry crowd and watch them vanish! Make sure you take a picture FIRST though, as I had mentioned before… they won’t last long!
Blue Cheese, Buffalo & Bacon Smashed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 3 lb teeny tiny potatoes also known as Fingerlings
- ½ cup blue cheese I used Roquefort
- ⅓ cup Panko bread crumbs
- 2 tbsp chives
- 4 slices bacon baked and crumbled
- ¼ cup Frank’s Red Hot
- 2 tbsp chives minced
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F
- In a pot, add potatoes and cover with cold water. Season with salt and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook until very tender when pierced with a knife, about 20 minutes.
- While potatoes are boiling, line sheet pan with aluminum foil and bake the bacon for about 10 minutes, or until very crisp. Remove from oven and lay bacon on paper towel lined plate. Discard aluminum foil and bacon fat. When bacon cools, crumble or chop into little bits. Set aside.
- Drain water from potatoes and lay on cutting board to slightly cool.
- Then using the bottom of a measuring cup or a fork, smash each potato until ¼-inch thick.
- Transfer smashed potatoes to a sheet pan. They must be in a single layer, no overlapping.
- In small mixing bowl combine Panko bread crumbs and blue cheese. Fully incorporate the blue cheese and Panko.
- Drizzle olive oil over the smashed potatoes. Crumble blue cheese mixture and drizzle buffalo sauce over potatoes.
- Roast for 25 minutes. Remove from oven, add the bacon bits and return to roast for another 5 minutes.
- Garnish with fresh chives and serve warm!!
