When I was a kid my mother would make the worst scalloped or au gratin potatoes. To be fair to her, she followed a recipe that most everyone else was using at the time. When I was invited for dinner at my friends’ houses, their mothers’ scalloped potatoes tasted just like the ones at home.
They sliced the potatoes raw, tossed them in flour and added thinly sliced onions, salt and pepper and then poured milk over just to cover and put them in the oven. Near the end of the cooking time they’d toss in some cheese.
Mom’s scalloped potatoes were always lumpy and either too runny or way too stodgy to eat. When I grew up and started cooking, I never ever thought about making them on my own because my mother was a good cook and her scalloped potatoes were crap. I assumed (wrongly) that they were difficult to make.
Enter the easiest recipe. It’s not quick, I’ll be honest, but if you’re looking for really good, really creamy potatoes au gratin or scalloped potatoes with cheese, this baby is IT. There is nothing difficult or tricky in this dish and you’ll be a hero.
With this recipe you boil the potatoes whole while you sauté the chopped onion and bacon (and garlic if you want) in lovely butter, then stir in the flour and then add the milk and cream and once the mixture has thickened, you add in the grated cheese.
One the potatoes are nearly cooked, drain and cool to where you can touch them and slice them to the thickness you like to eat. I like mine about 1/8 of an inch but because the potatoes are already nearly cooked, any thickness will work. Pour the sauce over the potatoes (I poured mine in layers but I don’t think it really matters. The liquid will find its way.
I have a recipe I’m going to make tomorrow that needed chicken so I bought a whole chicken and roasted it for dinner tonight and decided these potatoes would be perfect with it. Sometimes I get in a rut and eat my beloved mashed potatoes and gravy way too often. This is a side dish that I love.
- 3 pieces of bacon, chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 6 large potatoes, peeled
- ½ cup butter (scant)
- 3 tablespoons plain flour
- 2 cups cheddar cheese, grated
- 2 cups milk, warm
- ¼ cup cream, warm (added to the milk)
- ½ cup bread crumbs
- extra butter for dotting on top of the bread crumbs before baking
- salt and pepper to taste
- Peel potatoes and cook til barely tender and set aside to cool.
- In a skillet, saute onion and bacon on medium low in melted butter
- When onions are soft, add the flour and cook for 3 minutes
- Gradually add the milk and cream and bring to the boil.
- Add cheese and salt and pepper to taste (this sauce is delicious right off the spoon)
- Slice potatoes and arrange one layer on the bottom of a casserole dish
- Pour over some of the sauce and add another layer of potatoes. Continue until all the potatoes have been sliced and sauced.
- Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and dot with butter
- Bake at 180C/350F for 30-40 minutes until bubbly and golden brown.
Maureen, this defines comfort food to me! 😀 I was just thinking that a golden roast chicken would be great with it and then you mentioned it. I think your dinner guests are very lucky people 🙂
I keep telling them that, Lorraine 🙂
Looks insanely delicious!
Thank you 🙂
This is my favorite way to make scalloped potatoes. Really I just make it like mac n’ cheese but with potatoes. Blue cheese in there is good too!
Ohhh… blue cheese too? 🙂
Mm mm mm mm mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
I know! 🙂
G’day Maureen! There is nothing like creamy Scalloped Potatoes to brightened one’s day; is like the sunshine on a rainy day! I am now craving for some now too!
Cheers! Joanne
I really wanted them and would have made them even if the rest of the meal didn’t “match”. 🙂
Good stuff! I’ve seen recipes that cook the potatoes first, but baking the whole deal in the oven, but haven’t made them that way. Looks good! I usually don’t add bacon to mine, but sometimes do. I wonder why I don’t more often? It adds such great flavor. Super recipe – thanks.
This is comfort food at its best. I would love to have a plate even though I am full after a birthday dinner for my hubby. I am making some ribs come Friday and I think it would be a perfect time to try these.
Oh yeah, these potatoes and ribs would be a favorite for me.
Your mom used a recipe? I didn’t even know au gratin potatoes had a recipe until I was an adult. Up til then I thought they ONLY came out of a box. Yours look incredible. When I saw that first photo I was expecting the fantastic smell to start coming out of my speakers. 🙂
Okay this made me laugh. 🙂 and my mother never made anything out of a box.
Love me some creamy potatoes! Looks so good!
These look and sound absolutely fabulous. 🙂 I LOVE au gratin potatoes and make mine in a very similar way to yours. Bacon makes everything better, doesn’t it?
Yes, bacon makes most everything better. …but not cupcakes 🙂
I may love potatoes more than meat. 😀 I’m a big potato fan and this make me drool! I love this and make similar one, but no bacon or onion, so this goes to my list of recipes to try!
I know I prefer veggies to meat but I wouldn’t give up meat. I like that too. So nice to see you Nami!
Mmmmm comfort food at it’s best. Potatoes, cream, bacon. Enough said!
Not this time but I have been known to do a Nigella at the fridge moment with these potatoes. Creamy and cheesy and slightly bacony. 🙂
Maureen, I know exactly what you are talking about when you say the scalloped potatoes that we had as kids were not very popular. I felt the same way! It wasn’t until I started making my own that I actually came to like them. But I have to tell you, your recipe looks far better than mine, and I’m going to make yours some night very soon!
It’s funny, every woman in town made them the same way. They probably all used the same cookbook back in the dark ages.
Yum! This is comfort food. I love the addition of bacon as well. I might substitute some parmesan cheese in for the cheddar.
I like parmesan too but the cheddar is my fave.
You are a woman after my own heart! Scalloped potatoes are one of my all-time favourite dishes. Fortunately my mam never made it … Or it probably would’ve been as bad as her cauliflower cheese! I agree you have to have the right recipe … I use a French one that is full of gruyere & cream, so we have it quite rarely! You recipe sounds lovely.
Oh I’d like them with gruyere too as it’s one of my favorite cheeses. This recipe calls for a bitey cheddar and I love them. Have you blogged your recipe? Sharesies??
I only make scalloped potatoes at Christmas or Easter because my family would eat them all the time if I let them! I’ll definitely give your method a try this year. I’ll prep them the day before and be ready to pop them in the oven just before Christmas lunch- yummo!
Easy to make these ahead. I’m ready to have them again but I will resist. 🙂
If it wasn’t manadatory to have mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving in this house, I’d definitely have your scalloped potatoes!! They look outrageously delicious!!!
Yeah, mashed potatoes and either scalloped sweet potatoes with praline topping and sometimes both if there are enough people! (I know, I’ll never meet my goal talking like this.)
Oh these scalloped potatoes look worth every calories, I love the golden topping – so tempting!
I will admit I couldn’t resist. 🙂
Yum yum, I cooked something ( not as good) a
like this this week. I love it
It was yum!
OMG! This looks so creamy and tempting, wish I can have a bite right now 🙂
They were delicious. I want to have them again but they’re pretty rich so I’ll wait a while. 🙂
THese potatoes sound wonderful, Maureen. I’ve never heard of pre-boiling the potatoes and think it a great idea. Beyond that, the rest of the dish’s ingredients define comfort food to me. Thank you for sharing a recipe that I’ll be sure to try. I’ve pinned it to make sure I can find it. 🙂
I hadn’t either before I started using this method. The sauce is all thickened and the potatoes are nearly done. 30 minutes and we’re eating.
I was just looking for an idea what to cook tonight. Looks like I might have all ingredients in the house and I even have some boiled potatoes in the fridge waiting to be used.
so what did you cook? 🙂
OHHHH MY!!!! These potatoes look divine! I could eat a whole lot… look at that first picture!!!! Bookmarked!
LOL they’re good!
Totally saved this recipe for Thanksgiving. I’m doing this. 🙂 It looks creamy and incredible.
I hope you like them!
Oh yeah, scalloped potatoes are da bomb! Very drool-worthy. I don’t know why I don’t make them often?
oh probably because they’re filled with cheese and cream? LOL I’d wear them if I ate them any more often. 🙂
i plan to make these for Christmas. Can I prep today & bake tomorrow? Or at least boil the potatoes today?
Sorry for the delay, Pam but yes, these can be prepped ahead. I make mine up to the baking. that’s what I was doing instead of answering my comments – making scalloped potatoes!
Merry Christmas!