I call this a Tex Mex jacket potato with Mexicana Cheese recipe as it’s got two toppings on it. It’s a simple jacket potato, which I cooked in the microwave and topped with a portion of chilli con carne I’d made in the slow cooker and some Mexicana cheese which has chillies in it – but there are some fast food cheats you can use if that sounds like too much hard work!
I’d bought the Mexicana cheese as a Christmas treat, but hadn’t got round to using it – so have had to now open the pack and use it up in a variety of different dishes. There’s so much I could’ve made but the pack was just 200 grams in total, and I did want to try it in a few recipes and not just make sandwiches!
When you cook a jacket potato in the microwave it’s edible, you just don’t get the crispy skin – for me, I never used to eat the skins of potatoes, I used to scrape out the insides and throw the skin away, so I am never bothered by having a crispy skin or not. I do, however, now enjoy eating the crispy skins, but won’t put an oven on for nearly 2 hours just for one potato – one workaround is to use the microwave to cook the potato, then put it into my toaster oven for 20-30 minutes to crisp the skin up.
Ingredients:
- One baking potato, weighing ~300-350 grams. This recipe uses HALF a baked potato.
- 30 grams of Mexicana Cheese, grated – for one half of a potato
- A portion of chilli con carne, about 200 grams.
Method:
- Cook the baked potato by your usual, or preferred, method. Cut it in half as you’re only going to use one half – the other can be wrapped in foil and frozen, or kept in an airtight container in the fridge to reheat in the microwave for 3 minutes in the coming days either in a repeat dish, or use it as mashed potato!
- Heat up your chilli con carne, I use a microwave and cook it for 3 minutes then stir/test for heat – top the jacket potato with the hot chilli con carne – I portion up home made chilli con carne into jacket potato portions, but see the cheats section below for alternatives
- Add grated Mexicana cheese to the top.
- Eat!
Food Cheats:
Here are a number of ways you can cheat to pull this tasty meal together in a hurry:
- Microwave the jacket potato and just accept the skin isn’t crispy, saving time as this takes just 10-15 minutes in the microwave.
- Use tinned chilli con carn, instead of making your own. Just half a tin of chilli con carne is enough – once opened you can keep the remaining half a tin in the fridge in an airtight pot, or freeze it. I make up batches of chilli con carne in the slow cooker and freeze some in “jacket potato portion” sizes.
- Mexicana cheese is lovely, but you can make your own by using regular cheddar cheese and grating a fresh/raw chilli into it! This works out to be cheaper than buying Mexicana cheese as a branded item and you can freeze fresh chillies when they’re on offer.
When it comes to the 10-a-day this doesn’t count as many, with just the beans in the chilli it seems, but there are hidden ingredients in there of tomatoes and onions; the Mexicana cheese contains some chillies. But it won’t add much to that 10-a-day – if you wish to achieve that target, then serve this with a cheeky little green salad and some fresh lettuce, grated carrot, sliced peppers, a little sweetcorn … for me, I’m happy with just the potato/chilli/cheese in a bowl and BIG spoon!
50p Dinner:
This counts as a 50p Dinner as the baked potato cost 17p and this is half a potato, so 9p; the chilli was about 20p to make my own (30p for half a can if you use the cheats); and the amount of cheese I used was quite small so cost little – grating cheese makes it look like a lot more. I can’t remember without looking up the price to be honest…. but if the price of Mexicana cheese seems pricey, then regular cheddar and 10p for a fresh chilli would do a great job instead.
*usemexicanacheese