Potatoes are such a versatile food and one that makes for a fantastic side dish, just like these roasted potatoes with bacon. However, you may intend them to be a simple side but they are sure to be the highlight of your meal- you may want to make extra!
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Simple Roasted Potatoes
Potatoes are a great ingredient to always have on hand. There is so much that you can do with potatoes and, since they have a generally neutral flavor on their own, you can add almost anything to them, creating the perfect side dish to accompany whatever meal you are making. Our roasted potatoes with bacon recipe not only adds some crunchy, salty bacon to the potatoes, but we also add powerful pesto in order to add lots of taste to this dish.
To make these perfect potatoes is actually quite simple and only requires five main ingredients. So, while the flavor is complex and addicting, the recipe itself is easy and straight forward. This is definitely a recipe that you are going to love!
How to Prepare Roasted Potatoes
The name roasted potatoes sounds fancy but really all you are doing is cooking the potatoes in the oven for a long period of time- that’s not hard at all! Take a look at the steps that our recipe uses to make these potatoes with bacon and you will see that anyone can make this dish.
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and prepare a baking sheet with cooking spray.
- Peel and dice the potatoes and place them on the baking sheet in a single layer.
- Sprinkle the potatoes with the olive oil salt and pepper and toss the potatoes to coat them completely in the oil mix.
- Bake in the oven until they are fork tender, about 15-20 minutes. Cook for a few more minutes if needed (the cook time may depend on the exact size of your potatoes).
- While the potatoes are baking, cook the bacon in a large skillet until crispy. This will take about 10 minutes, depending on how high your heat is. Remove from the skillet, drain the fat (placing the bacon on a paper towels will help remove excess fat from the bacon as well) and then crumble the bacon.
- Place the roasted potatoes in a large bowl and then add the pesto and cooked bacon to the bowl. Toss the potatoes well, coating them completely in the pesto. Taste one of the potatoes and add some extra salt and pepper if needed.
- Serve the potatoes while hot!
Isn’t this an incredibly easy way to make flavorful roasted potatoes? Essentially, all you need is an oven, a sheet pan and a big bowl! You can even skip turning on your entire oven and just use a small countertop convection oven which will also cook the dish faster thanks to the convection setting.
One Pan Bacon Roasted Potatoes
While this recipe is delicious and easy as it is written, you can also make this recipe in just one pan by cooking the bacon in the same roasting dish as the potato pieces. A potato bake with bacon sounds great too! Here is how to accomplish this.
- Preheat oven as directed in the recipe
- Rather than use a cookie sheet, place the potatoes in a deeper casserole dish.
- Cut the uncooked bacon into small pieces and toss it in with the potatoes. Skip using the olive oil as there will be enough fat from the bacon to grease the dish.
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast in the oven as directed. You may want to stir the potatoes and bacon once or twice during the cooking time to keep the ingredients cooking evenly.
- Drain the fat from the pan (you can set it aside for another recipe later on- there are many recipes that utilize bacon fat well!)
- Toss the baked potatoes with bacon together with the pesto in the same baking dish, season with salt and pepper and enjoy!
This is just one way to make our delicious potato and bacon bake even easier, giving you one less skillet to wash! Any little tricks to save time are always useful.
What to Serve Roasted Potatoes With
While you could probably eat the entire bowl of pesto potatoes, it is essentially a side dish. Luckily, it pairs with almost anything! Here are a few ideas of what to cook along with this recipe to create a perfect meal.
- Baked chicken
- Skillet seared salmon or flounder
- Slow cooked pork tenderloin
- Grilled sirloin
- Scrambled eggs
Of course, this is a very short list of the potential dishes that you can make to go with our recipe. Since the pesto is the most powerful taste in this dish, think about what other things go well with pesto and let this guide you toward choosing the meal. Of course, bacon recipes are also a good place to start!
We hope that you love this recipe as much as we do and also hope that it ends up on your dinner table often. If you are interested in more simple, flavorful recipes, send us your email address to sign up to have great recipes emailed right to your inbox. You can also take a few minutes right now to browse the delicious recipes we have on our website- you are sure to find something great.
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Fried Pesto Potatoes + Bacon
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 40 mins
- Yield: 6 1x
- Category: Gluten Free + Paleo
Description
A simple, new way to make amazing potatoes.
Ingredients
- 6 medium size potatoes, peeled and diced into cubes
- 8 oz. sliced nitrate free bacon
- 4 tablespoons pesto
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- salt and pepper
- Sprinkle of Parmesan cheese (optional – not Paleo)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees and prepare a baking sheet with non-stick spray
- Arrange potatoes in a single layer on prepared sheet then sprinkle with olive oil, salt/pepper
- Place potatoes in oven until tender (approximately 15-20 minutes)
- When potatoes are done, place them in a large glass bowl then stir in the pesto and more salt and pepper, if desired
- While potatoes roast, cook bacon in a medium size skillet over medium-high heat
- Once bacon is done, drain the grease, crumble bacon, and either mix in with the potatoes or serve over a spoonful of potatoes
Notes
Pro Tips:
- Save the bacon fat to use at a later time. You can use it to grease a skillet and make eggs in the morning, toss it in your pasta so that it doesn’t stick together or essentially in any place that you would need butter or olive oil. It is a very versatile ingredient and can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks, ready to use at any time.
- If you have the ingredients on hand to make fresh pesto, that is a great way to make this recipe even more fantastic. Search our site for a perfect pesto recipe- all you will need is basil, garlic, nuts, parmesan cheese, olive oil and salt and pepper.
- Roast the potato pieces for a few more minutes (about 30 minutes total) in order to get crispier potatoes. After 15 minutes, stir the pieces and return the tray to the oven to finish cooking to get a nice golden brown crunch.
Everything about these potatoes is making me hungry! Those pesto coated potatoes, crunchy bacon – I need it in my life!!
These remind me of my favorite potatoes at a local German restaurant! They look perfect!