diff --git a/tests/torchtune/utils/test_checkpointer.py b/tests/torchtune/utils/test_checkpointer.py
index d70166f551..4616b07486 100644
--- a/tests/torchtune/utils/test_checkpointer.py
+++ b/tests/torchtune/utils/test_checkpointer.py
@@ -292,3 +292,31 @@ def test_save_load_checkpoint_multiple_file(
 
         assert len(output_state_dict_1.keys()) + 1 == len(orig_state_dict_1.keys())
         assert len(output_state_dict_2.keys()) + 1 == len(orig_state_dict_2.keys())
+
+
+class TestCheckpointerUtils:
+    @pytest.fixture
+    def model_checkpoint(self, tmp_path):
+        """
+        Fixture which creates a checkpoint file for testing checkpointer utils.
+        """
+        checkpoint_file = tmp_path / "model_checkpoint_01.pt"
+
+        state_dict = {
+            "token_embeddings.weight": torch.ones(1, 10),
+            "output.weight": torch.ones(1, 10),
+        }
+
+        torch.save(state_dict, checkpoint_file)
+
+        return checkpoint_file
+
+    @pytest.mark.parametrize("weights_only", [True, False])
+    def test_safe_torch_load(self, model_checkpoint, weights_only):
+        state_dict = safe_torch_load(Path(model_checkpoint), weights_only)
+
+        assert "token_embeddings.weight" in state_dict
+        assert "output.weight" in state_dict
+
+        assert state_dict["token_embeddings.weight"].shape[1] == 10
+        assert state_dict["output.weight"].shape[0] == 1
diff --git a/torchtune/utils/_checkpointing/_checkpointer.py b/torchtune/utils/_checkpointing/_checkpointer.py
index 6c273a11be..4b6486d84c 100644
--- a/torchtune/utils/_checkpointing/_checkpointer.py
+++ b/torchtune/utils/_checkpointing/_checkpointer.py
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ def __init__(
                 )
             self._recipe_checkpoint = get_path(self._checkpoint_dir, recipe_checkpoint)
 
-    def load_checkpoint(self) -> Dict[str, Any]:
+    def load_checkpoint(self, weights_only: bool = True) -> Dict[str, Any]:
         """
         Load TorchTune checkpoint from file. Currently only loading from a single file is supported.
 
@@ -162,9 +162,18 @@ def load_checkpoint(self) -> Dict[str, Any]:
                 "optimizer": ...,
                 ...
             }
+
+        Args:
+            weights_only (bool): flag passed down to torch.load. We expose this, because quantized models
+                cannot be loaded with weights_only=True
+
+        Returns:
+            Dict[str, Any]: state_dict from the input checkpoint
         """
         state_dict: Dict[str:Any] = {}
-        state_dict[utils.MODEL_KEY] = safe_torch_load(self._checkpoint_path)
+        state_dict[utils.MODEL_KEY] = safe_torch_load(
+            self._checkpoint_path, weights_only=weights_only
+        )
 
         if self._adapter_checkpoint:
             adapter_state_dict = safe_torch_load(self._adapter_checkpoint)
diff --git a/torchtune/utils/_checkpointing/_checkpointer_utils.py b/torchtune/utils/_checkpointing/_checkpointer_utils.py
index 3f52e8c968..d1ae4d2374 100644
--- a/torchtune/utils/_checkpointing/_checkpointer_utils.py
+++ b/torchtune/utils/_checkpointing/_checkpointer_utils.py
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ def get_path(input_dir: Path, filename: str, missing_ok: bool = False) -> Path:
     return file_path
 
 
-def safe_torch_load(checkpoint_path: Path) -> Dict[str, Any]:
+def safe_torch_load(checkpoint_path: Path, weights_only: bool = True) -> Dict[str, Any]:
     """
     Utility to load a checkpoint file in a safe manner.
     """
@@ -55,7 +55,10 @@ def safe_torch_load(checkpoint_path: Path) -> Dict[str, Any]:
         # convert the path into a string since pathlib Path and mmap don't work
         # well together
         state_dict = torch.load(
-            str(checkpoint_path), map_location="cpu", mmap=True, weights_only=True
+            str(checkpoint_path),
+            map_location="cpu",
+            mmap=True,
+            weights_only=weights_only,
         )
     except Exception as e:
         raise ValueError(f"Unable to load checkpoint from {checkpoint_path}. ") from e