Cheesy Potatoes

I just cracked myself up while preparing to write this post. Cheesy Potatoes is one of the recipes that we've been enjoying in our family for about 25+ years. I'm fairly certain all of you have eaten them, if not made them yourselves. My Bestest Friend makes them, but calls them Party Potatoes, so I'm sure there are probably other names for them, as well.

What made me laugh was that I looked in my recipe box to see if I actually had the recipe written down somewhere so I could give you the real deal. I tend to modify most recipes I make to better suit my taste, as I'm sure most people do.

Anyway, I came across a copy of a recipe from Ore Ida for something called Country Potatoes. I included it below. I'm pretty sure this is the "real" recipe, however, when you read my recipe below it, you'll see it's been significantly adjusted to add a substantial amount of fatty yumminess. Trust me, my version is awesome. And, truthfully, now that I'm thinking about it, it's probably not really any more fattening than the original recipe because the original calls for the addition of a full stick of melted butter. A full stick! I don't put any melted butter in mine, but I use more sour cream and cheese, so who knows. Maybe it's a wash? You probably could even use reduced-fat sour cream and/or cheese if you're really interested in saving some fat.

This is a great recipe to make with your kids (or even for kids to make by themselves) because outside of the onion, there's no chopping involved. And, you can easily substitute frozen chopped onions, so it's really a dump and mix recipe.

Country Potatoes

2lb bag Southern-style hash browns (the kind that are cubed)
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
½ cup chopped onion
1 stick melted butter
1 ½ cups cornflake crumbs
4 TBS melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Mix hash browns, sour cream, cheese, soup, onions and melted butter together. Put in a 9x13 casserole. Mix crumbs and remaining butter, and sprinkle over the top. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Cheesy Potatoes

16 oz container sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup (or cream of chicken)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese*
1 small or ½ large onion, finely diced
salt and pepper, to taste
2lb bag frozen Southern-style hash browns
1 ½ cups cornflakes
4 TBS melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Mix sour cream, soup, cheese, onion, salt and pepper until well blended. Add hash browns and mix well. Spread evenly into 9x13 baking dish. Toss cornflakes with melted butter, then spread evenly over potato mixture. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes, or until cornflakes are golden and edges of casserole are bubbling.

*I don’t usually do the cornflakes anymore, only because I don’t typically have cornflakes in the house. Now, what I usually do is reserve some of the cheese, about ½ cup, and then sprinkling that over the potatoes instead of the cornflakes. The cornflakes, however, are very yummy, and I use them whenever I actually have them in the house. Truthfully, I used Special K once, cuz I didn’t have any cornflakes, and nobody was any the wiser. ;-)