A comforting American classic that comes in what feels like 100 different forms. Mom’s potato casserole is our (and hopefully soon to be your) favorite potato casserole around! Plenty of veggies and potatoes smothered in a cheddar cheese sauce-this casserole is the kind of meal that can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner! Easily customizable, you can also add and replace the toppings to get the casserole that is best for your family. 

THE INGREDIENTS

Potatoes: Considering this is called a “Potato Casserole”, you can probably guess why these are here! We prefer russet potatoes for this recipe-they are classic in potato casseroles. If you don’t have russets, we would recommend reaching for Yukon Golds. For our 5 potatoes, we use a “medium” sized potato. This means that the potato is roughly 5 inches long. For contrast, a “small” potato is a potato that is closer to 3 inches long. If you do not have medium potatoes, simply do 2 small potatoes for every medium potato. You could also have 1 large potato count as 1.5-2 medium potatoes.

It’s really important to not skimp on the potatoes in this recipe, or else it can feel a little lackluster. We love vegetables and have a hearty amount present in this recipe, but they need to be accompanied by a generous serving of potatoes to give it that classic comfort food feel. 

Red Bell Pepper: Bell peppers are one of the most commonly used vegetables in American cooking. Therefore, it’s no surprise that they are included in this All-American recipe. Bell peppers are incredibly versatile and go with so many different foods. Bell peppers pair well with tomatoes and they provide freshness and a little crunch to help balance out all the cheesy goodness that is going on in this dish. 

Cherry Tomatoes: Cherry tomatoes are a friend of bell peppers for sure! Although we use cherry tomatoes in this recipe, feel free to use diced tomatoes if that is what you have. Either one will go just as well! What we like about tomatoes is that they pair incredibly well with cheese (there’s a reason pizza is so popular!). Besides making this potato casserole a little tastier and healthier, the main reason behind the cherry tomatoes is to add a juicy bite. Adding vegetables to this casserole is what takes it from a side dish to a meal, after all. 

Frozen Broccoli: Generally, we understand fresh broccoli is preferred by most over frozen. However, hear us out! Not only is frozen broccoli easier to cook-it also helps free up space in your freezer. How much softer frozen broccoli is to eat once cooked, even compared to its cooked fresh counterpart, just works better. There are so many components and we want them to all fit together as one cohesive bite, after all.

Yellow Onions: Onions add so much flavor to this recipe. Given how important they are (there are two whole onions in this recipe, if you didn’t know!), we do not recommend replacing them with onion powder or dried minced onion. That being said, use what you have, we appreciate that! If you were going to use onion powder, use two whole tablespoons-that’s right, heavy on it! If you use dried minced onion, use a whole ¼ cup!

We would personally add the dried minced onion to the butter in the cheese sauce to bloom it. For the onion powder, we would either add it into the cheese sauce with the other spices or sprinkle it over both the potatoes and the vegetables while cooking. Like we said, onions are a key point in this recipe. If it makes you a little nervous, feel free to cut down on the onion. We personally prefer slicing the onion instead of dicing so that they stand out with the rest of the vegetables. If you want a faster dinner, feel free to dice them, though! Cooking is what you make it-our recipe is just a template.

Other Topping/Mix-In Ideas: Maybe you have other veggies on hand or don’t like a few of these-that is ok! Mushrooms, cauliflower, zucchini, green beans, sweet corn, or asparagus come to mind for vegetables that you can throw in here. However, whatever you think sounds good will probably be good. In addition to that, as much as we love vegetables, they aren’t the only topping options in the world. Pre-cooked meat is definitely a popular go-to for casseroles. If you are looking for a bit more texture, we recommend adding some toasted breadcrumbs or some fried onions on top! You also do not have to follow the cheddar cheese route. For example, swiss goes incredibly well with other topping ideas such as mushrooms. Change up your cheese to what you like or even add multiple different cheeses. 

Vegetable Oil: If you reduce the oil in this recipe, you will get less crunchy potatoes! Also, note that if you do add more oil, your potatoes may cook and brown faster than the recipe states. Although potatoes still cook through with minimal oil, to get them crunchy, you do need to add some oil! Feel free to replace the vegetable oil with any neutral oil. 

Lawry Salt: There’s something about seasoning salt that just screams comfort food. We find it goes well with potato or cheese-focused dishes. Don’t have Lawry salt? Make your own by combining salt, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and turmeric. Turmeric is incredibly strong, so be light handed unless you enjoy the flavor!

Black Pepper: Salt and black pepper find themselves in a lot of American cooking. We like that, without heat, it still adds a little “zing” that cuts through the rich cheesiness that we have going on here. Feel free to adjust this to your preference! Another good spice for cutting through richness is red pepper flakes, if you wish to try that out. 

Mustard Powder: Mustard powder is a background character that makes our cheese sauce ever the better! However, let’s not bring it into the limelight. Too much mustard powder can lead to a bitter taste throughout the whole dish. If you have found that you went too heavy handed-add more milk and cheese until it is palatable (don’t ask how we figured this out!). 

Paprika: For once, regular paprika instead of smoked paprika makes an appearance on our blog. It’s not spicy at all-if anything, it is a little sweet. Not only does it add a little color to our recipe, but its simple flavor pairs well with this simple American cooking. 

Cheddar Cheese: Sharp, not sharp-use what you prefer! Cheddar cheese is the usual suspect when it comes to cheesy potato casseroles, and we wanted to keep it traditional-that’s what mom always did, after all. We not only like to add it to our cheese sauce, but find melting it on top at the end also ensures cheddar cheese really stands out. However, feel free to replace this with any other cheese that melts well. 

Milk: We personally use 2% milk in this recipe. As a general rule of thumb, if you use skim or 1% milk you may find that your cheese sauce is a little thinner and if you use whole milk you may find that your cheese sauce is a little thicker. To counteract that, you can change the amount of milk in this recipe and also take advantage of the heat-the longer it is on the heat, the thicker it will get. 

Flour: Half of a roux! A roux is traditionally equal parts of fat and flour. The more flour you add, the thicker our cheese sauce will get. As we find it is already not on the thin side, we really do not recommend increasing the flour in this recipe. If you don’t have milk to spare to thin out the cheese sauce, then, as a step of caution, you could reduce the amount of flour in this recipe and then leave the casserole on the heat longer to thicken it up. 

Butter: The other half of a roux, the fat in our mixture of fat and flour. We recommend keeping the amount of butter right where it is-there is no need for extra fat and any less butter impacts our roux which we need to thicken our cheese sauce. 

KEY INFORMATION: 

Pan Size: We have made this casserole in so many different pans-it is almost ridiculous. In a 12 inch frying pan, which is as small as we recommend you to go, you will get a mixture of crispy and soft potatoes. The more area your pan has, the less you have to layer the potatoes-meaning more touch the pan. By layering your potatoes more, you risk steaming the ones on top instead of pan frying them. Even if you do try to flip it perfectly, it is hard to do it well enough to ensure that each potato slice gets time on the pan itself.

By using a larger pan or an electric skillet, you can have the potatoes all (or nearly all) as one layer-leading to potatoes that all have the same crispy texture. However, the larger the pan, the smaller the layer of oil is across the surface because it gets spread out more. You may have to increase the oil as needed to compensate for this. 

The Importance of Lids: If we want our potatoes to be crispy, why do we use a lid?? The honest truth is that, when frying such a large amount of potatoes at once, it takes a long time for them to fully cook through. By having a lid on, we trap in steam and they partially cook via that steaming method as well. Since we still have plenty of oil and a high enough heat in our pan, they also get crispy! If you worry about them being too soft, feel free to take the lid off. Reserve a little bit more cook time for your potatoes and it will all work out!  

Watch, Listen, and Flip: Everyone cooks just a little differently-maybe your pan is a little different, you alter the amount of oil, your stovetop is running a little hot or a little cold…the moral of the story is watch, listen, and flip! Every 5 minutes or so you will want to take a peek at your potatoes and check in. You may have to lower or raise the heat. You should be able to easily hear them sizzling. Once your potatoes have that crispy brown appearance on one side, it is time to flip! So, even though my recipe says the potatoes will be done in a certain amount of time, it may be a little more or a little less depending on how you personally cooked them. This is especially the case if you do not have to layer your potatoes. 

8 Minutes of Prep Time? It takes around 8 minutes to prepare your potatoes and start cooking them! This is what we mean by “prep time” in this recipe. From there, you are cooking and prepping at the same time-so while the potatoes cook, you’re chopping the other vegetables. That is what we mean by “cook time” in this recipe. 

If Using Fresh Broccoli: Make sure you fully cook your broccoli through before adding it to the casserole. We recommend doing a blanching the broccoli florets for about 3 minutes. Blanching is when you bring a pot of water to a boil, boil your veggies for a short amount of time, and then dunk them in ice water to immediately stop the cooking process. 

Flavor Variations: If you don’t have the exact ingredients for this recipe on hand or just feel like something a little different, here are a few ideas to get you started! Replace the cheddar with mozzarella and add your favorite pizza toppings, as well some roma or cherry tomatoes, for a pizza themed potato casserole. You could also do a swiss cheese and mushroom potato casserole with diced asparagus and even some steak. For a smaller change, add in some cauliflower to this recipe as it pairs very well with cheddar cheese.