Twice Baked Potato Casserole
This Twice Baked Potato Casserole is the perfect comfort food for the holidays. Serve it as a main dish or on the side. It's a good thing that it's so easy to make, because everyone will be asking for seconds!
Ingredients
- 4 pounds Yukon Gold Potatoes approx 14 medium sized, scrubbed and dried
- 1 pack of bacon approx 12 pieces, reserve about 1/2 cup for topping
- 1 stick (½ cup) salted butter softened and sliced into pats, plus more for greasing the pan
- 3/4 cup sour cream room temperature
- 1 cup milk warmed
- 4 ounce cream cheese softened at room temperature
- 2 ½ cups marble cheddar cheese freshly grated and divided
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 3 green onions thinly sliced for serving (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 °F
- Clean and scrub potatoes. Then poke a few holes over them with a fork. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes (depending on size) or until tender when pierced with a fork, flipping halfway through. Remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes.
- Remove from fridge the butter, sour cream, cream cheese and milk. Set them aside, they shouldn’t be cold when combined with the potatoes. Pro Tip: To bring the butter, sour cream and cream cheese to room temperature I allow to sit on the countertop for an hour before adding to the potatoes. To bring milk to room temperature quickly and safely, pour milk into a microwave safe dish or measuring cup and heat it in the microwave for a few seconds: 20 seconds for ½ cup of milk, 30 seconds for 1 cup of milk, 45 seconds for 2 cups of milk. For this recipe you will only need to microwave the 1 cup of milk for 30 seconds. Microwave milk right before ready to use.
- While the potatoes cook, dice the bacon into small pieces. In a large frying pan on medium heat, cook the bacon for about 10 minutes or until it is crispy and cooked through, stirring occasionally. Remove cooked bacon from the pan and set aside on a paper towel-lined plate to cool.
- Remove the potatoes from the oven once easily pierced with a fork and reduce oven temperature to 375°F.
- Once cool, slice warm potatoes in half and remove flesh with a spoon and place in a large bowl; discard skin. (Pro Tip: If you like potato skins, like I do, chop up 2 to 3 of the potato skins and add them to the bowl).
- Lightly mash the potatoes with a potato masher until almost completely mashed.
- Fold in the rest of the ingredients: the room temperature butter, sour cream, cream cheese, milk, salt and pepper. Mix until well combined.
- Add 1 ½ cups of the grated cheese and 1 cup of the cooked crumbled bacon and set the rest aside for topping the casserole.
- Lightly butter a 3 quart baking dish and transfer in the potato mixture. Cover with tin foil and bake for 35 minutes.
- Discard foil and top with the remaining shredded cheese and bacon. Bake, uncovered, for 15-20 more minutes until warmed through and lightly golden on top. Let rest 10 minutes.
- Top with any additional bacon and optional green onion then serve.
