Twice-Baked Potato Casserole
In this comforting side dish casserole, baked potatoes are mashed with cheddar cheese, bacon, sour cream, and roasted garlic and topped with scallions. Delicious.
This Twice-Baked Potato Casserole side dish was inspired by that classic of 1970s steakhouses, the twice-baked potato. In this case, baked potatoes are mashed with cheddar cheese, bacon, sour cream, and roasted garlic and topped with scallions. Delicious.
Yield:
8 to 10 servingsIngredients
8 tablespoons salted butter, softened, cut into 8 pieces, plus more for greasing pan
5 pounds russet potatoes (8 to 12, depending on size), unpeeled and scrubbed clean
4 large cloves garlic
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
6 slices thick-cut bacon
1 ½ cups sour cream, at room temperature
1 ½ cups milk
1 ½ cups grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese, plus ½ cup for topping
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
5 scallions, sliced
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 °F and set two racks to the upper- and lower-third positions. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Set aside.
Prick the potatoes all over with a fork. Arrange the potatoes on a large rimmed baking sheet. Lay the garlic cloves in a piece of aluminum foil, drizzle with the oil, and wrap to seal. Add garlic to the baking sheet with the potatoes and transfer to the lower rack of your oven to bake for 45 minutes.
Line another large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Lay the bacon on the sheet and place on the upper rack of your oven. Bake until nicely browned and crisp, 9 to 12 minutes, depending on thickness. Remove and drain on paper towels (make sure to reserve the fat in the pan), then crumble.
After 45 minutes, poke the potatoes with a thin knife. The blade should slide very easily through. If not, bake for 10 to 15 minutes more. Remove the potatoes from the oven, let them cool for 10 minutes, and decrease the oven temperature to 375 °F. Squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins and set aside.
Leave the skins on two of the potatoes and set aside. Slice the remaining potatoes in half lengthwise. Using a dish dowel to protect your hands, pick up one of the potato halves and use a spoon to scoop out the flesh into a large bowl. Repeat with remaining potato halves. Cut the unpeeled potatoes into small pieces and add them to the bowl.
Now, add the butter, sour cream, milk, and the reserved bacon fat. Mash with a potato masher until mostly smooth. Add 11/2 cups cheddar, the roasted garlic, and all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon crumbles. Mix well.
Pour the potato mixture into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle the top with 1/2 cup cheddar. Bake until golden and bubbly, 25 to 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with bacon crumbles and sliced scallions. Serve hot.
Amy Traverso
Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and co-host of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with WGBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.
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