The Top 17 Cheesy Toppings for Baked Potatoes

Baked potatoes are one of the most under-appreciated side dishes out there. Not only are they super easy to make at home, but they can also be dressed up or down depending on the occasion. For example, if you’re bringing steakhouse vibes to your dinner table, you can opt for more elaborate toppings and sauces. Or, if you’re seeking something a little more casual and filling, spoon on the homemade chili and pull out the butter tray. One topping that you have to have for your baked potatoes, regardless of how fancy you want to make them, is cheese. 

Cheese, as a whole, can bring a delectable fattiness to your baked potato, elevate its flavor, and work with the other toppings to create a unique and tasty bite. There are some cheese varieties that are timeless pairings for baked potatoes (we’re looking at you, cheddar), and there are some that are a little more whimsical and new-age — meaning you probably won’t be seeing them on a restaurant menu any time soon. But, they’re all delicious and worth trying if you love both cheese and baked potatoes. We curated a list of some of the best cheesy toppings you need to try on your baked potatoes, as well as how to pair them with other garnishes to create a wholesome and satisfying bite. 

If there are any cheeses on this list that you’ve tried with your baked potato before, it’s probably going to be this one. While cheddar’s taste is somewhat vanilla, especially compared to some of the more flavorful selections on this list, it is nothing if not predictable.

Cheddar can come in so many different varieties, so there is ample room for experimentation when it comes to stuffing your baked potato. If you’re not a die-hard cheddar fan, you might want to go with a mild variety. But, if cheddar is the star of the show, go for an extra sharp variety. It’s an especially creamy cheese that melts well, making it a great pairing for classic baked potato toppings like butter and sour cream. Plus, you can pair it with even more flavorful garnishes, like chives and crumbled bacon, for an all-around savory bite. It’s one cheese that’s hard not to love. 

If you aren’t the biggest fan of stinky blue, you probably won’t like it on your baked potato. But, if you’re all about the aromatic and complex nature of this type of cheese, then it’s time to go full speed ahead and add blue cheese crumbles to your next baked potato. 

The sharpness of the blue cheese, be it a sharp Roquefort or mellow Gorgonzola Dolce, will cut through the carby baked potato, along with any other fatty toppings you add to it, like bacon. It’s also a great complement to classic baked potato toppings, including sharp and oniony chives and creamy sour cream. Plus, blue cheese is no stranger to the foods baked potatoes are often associated with, like steak or mushrooms. The one thing to note here is that blue cheese doesn’t like to share the spotlight, so you’ll want to make sure it’s the only cheesy addition you use on your baked potatoes. 

Beer cheese is something you’re more likely to see on the bar menu — served alongside a batch of delicious soft pretzels — than on a baked potato. This cheesy sauce, which is often made with sharp cheddar, ale, Dijon mustard, and Worcestershire sauce, is one of the more umami-packed cheese sauces on this list. The Dijon mustard offers the perfect sharp contrast to the Worcestershire undertones, making it a one-and-done topping for your baked potato. 

This tangy, bitter, and wholly complex cheese sauce is one that’s often best in small doses. Though, if you’re making your own batch at home, you can easily customize its flavor by adding more or less or any of its components, or swapping out a heavy stout for something more mild. It’s pub-y comfort food at its finest, and the baked potato does a great job of sopping up all that flavor and giving it a carby platform to shine on. 

Parmesan probably isn’t the first cheese you reach for when you think “baked potato.” It’s not as melty as the other ones on this list, and its flavor runs a little drier than something like a mozzarella or a cheddar. But when you consider its umami and salty flavor, it may be a better match for a baked potato than you initially thought. 

While you can sprinkle Parmesan onto the potatoes after they’re done baking, an even better idea is to crust the outside of your potatoes with the cheese before you bake (or roast) them. This hack, which was popularized on TikTok, can be done with halved potatoes, set cut side-down in a bath of butter and freshly shredded Parmesan. The cheese will stick like a crust on the spuds and offer the perfect dipping accompaniment for sour cream. It’s definitely not a traditional take on baked potatoes, but it’s nonetheless flavorful. 

Swiss cheese is an excellent variety to try on your baked potatoes, especially if you’re partial to a mild cheddar. While there are tons of varieties of Swiss cheese to choose from, as a whole, the texture tends to be very creamy and decadent, with few sharp notes. It’s generally approachable, and its melty, nutty flavor will be the perfect complement to a starchy potato.

Swiss cheese is a great companion to loaded baked potato toppings. Although people might be more familiar with the standard cheddar-sour cream-chives combination, you can easily make an elevated loaded spud by topping it with Swiss, like Emmental, caramelized onions, mushrooms, and thyme. The cheese also in good company with pork-based toppings, like bacon or ham. 

Goat cheese is not a popular option among all eaters — mainly because its flavor, for lack of a better word, is goaty. It’s sharp and earthy, which is the perfect match to a relatively bland potato. 

The best way to add goat cheese to your baked potato isn’t to add a sprinkle after the spud is done baking. Rather, it’s to mix the cheese into the filling for a twice-baked potato. The baking will help mellow out the goat cheese flavor and meld it better with the other ingredients, like chives and butter. It will also hide the fact that goat cheese barely melts.

Chèvre is one of the most well-known types of goat cheese, but it’s far from the only variety you can add to your spud. You can find slightly harder goat cheeses and others that resemble cow’s milk cheeses, like goat Gouda, that are also worthy of your baked potato. It’s a worthwhile swap if you like the mouthfeel of one of these cow’s milk cheeses, but want the goaty undertones.

Feta is definitely one of the best cheeses you can add to your baked potato because it delivers a one-two-punch of a salty flavor and creamy texture. Feta is incredibly versatile, and while it doesn’t melt as well as some of the other cheeses on this list, it’s still worthy of consideration. 

Feta pairs well with other Mediterranean flavors, including sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, and herbs, which allows for endless ways to build your baked potato. You could also try pairing this cheese with heavier baked potato toppings, like roasted garlic and caramelized onions, for an upgraded spud. Plus, you can use this cheese for standard potato varieties, like a russet, or opt to make loaded sweet potatoes instead. Feta’s versatile, slightly salty profile is the perfect match for both types of spuds. 

It turns out that a jar of store-bought Alfredo sauce is good for more than just noodles. This sauce is like a vector for flavor — it’s rich and buttery, though it also has a decently creamy and cheesy profile that will take any baked potato to the next level. And, it’s all the more convenient that you can just pick up a jar of the sauce, nuke it in the microwave, and slather it on your spuds. You can even swap out classic Alfredo for a different variation, like roasted garlic or bacon Alfredo. The warm sauce will permeate the fleshy spud and infuse every bite with a sharply cheesy flavor and unctuous mouthfeel. 

The other great thing about Alfredo sauce is that you can pair it with an array of different toppings to turn a side dish into a whole meal. Just think about what would go well in an Alfredo pasta dish and go from there. For one, you could add broccoli and cauliflower to cut through the richness, or load it up with grilled chicken for extra protein. An extra sprinkle of Parmesan also wouldn’t hurt. 

You may have had cojita cheese before and just not realized it. It’s a common addition to street corn (aka elote) and has a dry texture — not unlike feta. If cojita is allowed to age longer, it dries out even more and turns into something Parmesan adjacent, just with a very different flavor. It’s uniquely funky and salty, yet still mild, making it a great fit for an otherwise bland baked potato. 

The one important thing to note about cojita cheese is that it doesn’t melt, so it’s usually used as a finishing cheese for different Mexican dishes. As such, you’ll want to add it to your baked potato before serving, alongside other Mexican-inspired toppings. Switch up your weeknight dinner routine with a loaded sweet potato, topped with cojita, black beans, fresh cilantro, and a lime crema. Or, try an elote-style potato and pair this cheese with sour cream (a stand-in for the usual mayo addition), lime juice, Tajín, and roasted corn kernels. 

Shredded mozzarella may already be a staple ingredient in your fridge. This versatile cheese isn’t particularly sharp, and its meltiness makes it a worthy addition to your baked potatoes, among other foods. 

If you’re looking to try and get your kids to fall in love with baked potatoes, mozzarella cheese is the way to go. Its flavor is inoffensive, so much so that it can easily win picky eaters over. Your mind also might naturally go to a spin on pizza — but baked potatoes and tomatoes tend to butt heads a little too much. For example, try topping your baked potato with a drizzle of pesto for a fresh-from-the-garden flavor, along with melty mozzarella and Parmesan. Herbs and alliums, like roasted garlic and chives, will cut through the richness of the mozzarella and starchy spud underneath, making for a fantastic bite.

You might be most familiar with a warm crock of queso and a side of tortilla chips for dipping, but it turns out that this Tex Mex favorite is also a great cheesy topping for baked potatoes. Queso, which is Spanish for “cheese” is typically made with melted cheese, like American, cheddar, or pepper Jack. It gets its creamy boost from evaporated milk and its flavor from an array of spices, which can include everything from cayenne and smoked paprika to jalapeños. You can either make your own queso recipe at home or pick up a jar from your local grocery store to use for your baked potatoes. 

Queso is an excellent topping for baked potatoes because it’s molten and will seep down into the interior of the potato, infusing every bite with cheesy goodness. It’s also a great pairing for other toppings in the Tex-Mex family, like candied jalapeños, black beans, and fajita-style veggies. The flavor is slightly spicy and multi-dimensional, making for a cheesy topping you won’t get tired of enjoying.

Ricotta is a cheese that you probably associate with desserts, like cannolis, more than baked potatoes. But this creamy, fresh cheese is also an excellent way to give your regular spuds or baked sweet potatoes a unique edge. 

On its own, ricotta’s flavor is very mild. It’s milky, which will lend some creaminess to your baked potato without making it super rich. Its freshness also comes in handy for this popular side dish, as it can help cut through the starchiness of the potato. If you want to lighten its flavor even more, consider stirring the ricotta with a little bit of lemon juice and lemon zest before plopping it on your potato. If you’re looking for a sweeter and more floral flavor to complement your sweet potato base, try stirring a little bit of honey into this ricotta mixture.

No trip to the South is complete without an order of pimento cheese — be it on a sandwich or served as a dip with crackers. For the uninitiated, this unique cheesy concoction combines shredded sharp cheddar, mayonnaise, and its namesake pimento peppers together. While it’s often thought of as a stand-alone item, it can also be used as a topping for everything from chili to BLTs sandwiches — and baked potatoes, too. 

There are many merits to scooping this creamy spread into your baked potatoes. For one, the mayonnaise will replace any need for sour cream, while the cheddar cheese will melt slightly from the heat of your potato. You can also transform your pimento cheese recipe by adding bacon or smoked paprika ( as Gordon Ramsay does) to it; both of these flavors are in good company with an otherwise dull potato. It’s a cheesy, rich, one-and-done spread that will elevate the flavor of your baked potato and give it a Southern twist. 

Butterkäse is a cheese that you may not have ever heard of — until now. If you’re looking for a tasty and rich accompaniment to your cheese board or baked potato, this is it. As its name suggests, butterkäse tastes like, well, butter — and it melts like it, too. It’s one of our favorite ingredients to add to a grilled cheese, since it enhances every bite with an unprecedented level of cheesy richness. 

If you can locate this cheese in a specialty cheese shop, or in the designated cheese section of a well-stocked conventional grocery store, you’ll want to pick yourself up a pack (or two) for your baked potatoes. For optimal melting, shred the cheese yourself (saving a few cubes for snacking, of course) and stuff them inside of your potato. The cheese pairs well with fresh herbs, like thyme and rosemary, though it could also be a good cheesy accompaniment to sophisticated baked potato toppings, like caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms. 

Pepper Jack’s flavor is, as you would expect it to be, quite peppery and bright. When you get a little piece of jalapeño along with the rich cheese, it’s a heavenly bite. So, just imagine how good a baked potato would taste mixed together with this melty, gooey cheese and perfectly satisfying bits of piquant pepper. It would be an excellent pairing to a peppercorn-crusted steak, though you may want to serve your steakhouse-worthy spread with a side of greens to help prevent palate fatigue. 

A pepper Jack baked potato would also be an excellent match for Tex Mex potato toppings, seeing as how the cheese, a variant of Monterey Jack, often contains several varieties of hot pepper, and it pairs well with aromatics and flavor enhancers like rosemary and garlic. A shredded version of this cheese would be an excellent topping for a sweet potato. Provided that you add a protein to it, you could even transform it into a whole meal — all within the confines of a crispy and salty potato skin. 

Creamy and rich smoked gouda is an excellent addition to your baked potatoes. Its flavor is more sophisticated and adult-ish than a plain cheddar or a melty mozzarella, as it has subtle nutty notes paired with a buttery texture. Gouda would be an excellent match for an array of conventional baked potato toppings, whether you like fatty bacon, rich sour cream, or a little sprinkle of chives. You can also add more refined selections, like garlic, caramelized onions, and sauteed mushrooms, to help complement the cheese’s richness and make your baked potato bite more robust. 

The smoked cheese is also an excellent, albeit unexpected, match for another baked potato topping: chili. The warm, aromatic boldness of the cheese will mesh well with the notes of your chili of choice, and will work together to uplift each starchy bite.

You probably aren’t making a Brie baked potato very often — and if you are, can we get an invite to your dinner table? This rich cheese is perhaps best known in its baked form, as it turns molten and gooey on the inside, while its rind holds firm. So in that respect, it’s different than the other cheeses on this list that can be easily shredded and stirred into your baked potato filling. But, its richness and fatty flavor is an excellent match for a starchy russet, and is a must-try for lovers of this cheese. 

Since the rind is a bit distracting from the bite, we would recommend shaving it off when you are ready to prepare your potatoes. Simply split them open after they’re done baking, spoon in a few tablespoons of the cheese, and return it to the oven for a few minutes so that it can melt and infuse into the center of the potato. The soft cheese has a beautiful flavor that deserves your palate’s full attention, though we could also see pairing it with fatty bacon or a sprinkle of fresh herbs for a pop of color.