These quick-to-make loaded Pulled Pork Potato Skins are full of succulent pork carnitas (or Instant Pot Carnitas) smothered in bbq sauce, sour cream and flavor. Perfect game day appetizer for your hungry crew.
Let’s Smash and Load Baby!
Superbowl is around the corner so it’s time to man-up on game time appetizer recipes. In addition to our Sticky Asian Oven Baked Chicken Wings and Air Fryer Chicken Wings, we’ll be serving these Loaded Pulled Pork Potato Skins featuring our killer Carnitas recipe!
We love any and all potato recipes. Baked? Love it. Mashed? Favorite. Grilled? Yes, please. With that said, none of them quite compare to these Loaded Pulled Pork Potato Skins. They’re easy to make, soft and loaded with all the good stuff in life.
If you’re watching your caloric intake, and looking for healthy potato skins, you can swap the taters for sweet potatoes and the sour cream for greek yogurt, but that’s not how we roll on game day. We go where our heart takes us. Like Leonardo DiCaprio in the Titanic. His heart will go on Celine Dion- style, but our hearts needs the good stuff.
Pulled Pork Potato Skins
For a hands off approach, stick the potatoes in a crockpot with a cup of water and cook on high for 2-3 hours. You’ll end up with soft potatoes, ready to smash and load.
Good barbecue sauce is key here. We use our homemade barbecue sauce most days. Looking for store bought? Our go-to sauce is Sweet Baby Ray’s, but any barbecue sauce without the fake heavy sugar taste works well.
If you’re bacon obsessed add a few crumbles to the top. We can’t disagree with this move. Quite the opposite in fact. Like cheese? Add gorgonzola or another cheese that pairs well with pulled pork
Other Appetizer Recipes:
- Candied Jalapeños
- Cranberry Jalapeño Dip
- Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
- Steamer Clams with Garlic
- Little Smokies Recipe
- Grilled Artichoke Dipping Sauce
- Grilled Chicken Wings
- Grilled Brie
- Shrimp Cocktail
- Jamaican Jerk Chicken
- Air Fryer Pizza Rolls
- Air Fryer French Fries
FOODIE AND WINE DRINK PAIRING RECOMMENDATIONS:
Wine-Rosé, Petite Syrah (chilled)
Beer- American Pale Ale (Sierra Nevada)

Ingredients
- 1 Batch of Carnitas
- 4-5 lb Petite Potatoes
- 1 bottle Barbecue Sauce
- Sour Cream to Taste
- Green Onions To Taste
Instructions
- Fill a large stockpot with water and add the potatoes. Turn the heat to high and wait for the water to boil.
- Once boiling, turning the timer on to 18 minutes.
- Drain the potatoes and place them on a paper towel to dry.
- Once dried, gently smash each potato with the back of a spoon until a flat surface is created.
- In a large bowl, add the barbecue sauce to the carnitas and stir until every piece of meat is covered in sauce.
- Top each smashed potato with the barbecue carnitas, sour cream and green onions.
- Enjoy immediately!