Across Canada there’s a popular dish called poutine that’s very commonly served at restaurants or made for cozy home meals. It’s also beloved in US states near the Canadian border, but in many other states this potato dish isn’t widely known.

The pub version is a heaping helping of gravy served over crispy French fries and dotted with cheddar cheese curds. Our poutine tater skins recipe uses baked potatoes instead for a hearty meal that’s very warming and comforting.

To start with you’ll need to bake your potatoes and then let them cool a bit. Then cut them in half and scoop out the insides. Save these for later.

These tater skins are a lot like twice baked potatoes, except we make sure the skins are extra crispy with generous lashings of butter on both sides. Bake just the skins again while you mash up the insides with some butter and spices.

Then work on the gravy. To simplify things we’re using gravy mix, but you can make yours from scratch if you like. Our Guinness gravy and our mushroom gravy are both great ones to make for this dish.

Then scoop the mashed potatoes back into the skins, top with gravy and the cheese curds and bake again until the cheese is all melted and gooey. The final touch is to sprinkle some fresh parsley on top and then you’ve got a poutine dinner -without deep frying anything.

See what tall the fuss us about with this tasty take on the Canadian dish by making it at home for yourself. One taste and I bet you’ll be hooked on poutine tater skins!