Editors' Pick
Hamburger Potato Cheese Casserole
"The name just about says it all. If you are looking for something exotic, interesting or spicy, you would be happier moving on to the next recipe. If you need something that will be ready quickly, or is low fat, this is not the dish for you. You also usually have to soak the pan afterward to clean up. BUT, if sometimes you or your family members just want some hamburger and cheesy potatoes, and you have a couple of hours before you need to have dinner ready, you might enjoy this. After all of the fun and interesting things I make for my family - which they enjoy - this is what they ask for. This is a recipe my mother asked for; this is what my son wants to eat so he feels like he's been home during school holidays; my picky 7 year old eats an adult-sized portion of this. My husband is always happy to eat it. Adapted from the More with Less cookbook - can also be made with other meats/cheeses."
photo by Jonathan Melendez
- Ready In:
- 1hr 55mins
- Ingredients:
- 11
- Serves:
-
6
ingredients
- 5 large russet potatoes, peeled and sliced about 1/4-1/2 inch thick
- 2 -3 tablespoons chopped onions
- 1 lb ground beef (really lean is preferable)
- salt and pepper
-
Cheese sauce (the same one I use for macaroni and cheese)
- 2 cups milk (I use skim)
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 teaspoon pepper
- 8 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- ketchup (optional condiment)
directions
- I use a 2 1/2 quart covered casserole dish for this. This will stick unless you have a great non-stick baking dish - I never grease the pan though because of all the fat that's already in this.
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Brown hamburger and onion.
- Place a layer of sliced potatoes in casserole dish, top with half of hamburger/onion mixture. Salt and pepper to taste (kind of depends on how salty your cheese sauce is - you can always salt it later if it needs it).
- Repeat layering of potato slices and hamburger mixture (and salt and pepper if desired).
-
Make Cheese sauce:
- Melt 3 T butter in saucepan over med-high heat.
- Add 3 T flour, and the salt and pepper. Stir quickly to blend.
- Add 2 cups milk; stir with whisk to incorporate butter/flour mixture.
- Reduce heat, stir till thickened and bubbly.
- Remove from heat and add shredded cheddar. Stir until cheese melts.
- Pour cheese sauce over hamburger and potatoes in baking dish. Push potatoes around to let cheese sauce into all of the crevices so it's well coated.
- Cover and place in oven. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, till potatoes are tender and top is browned. I like to take off the lid for the last 20 minutes or so to brown the top a bit.
- Even with the leanest ground beef, this can get little pools of grease on top - I just spoon these off. It doesn't mean the whole thing is greasy - just cheesy.
- My family members consider generous amounts of ketchup a necessary addition to this dish. I like it fine by itself (ok, maybe a spot of ketchup on the side).
Questions & Replies
-
Dont i cook the hamburger before i layer it wirh potatoes and place in oven?
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Can u use hashbrowns instead
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For the cheddar cheese, is the 8 of weight or measurement?
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What's better, should I put potatoes first on bottom then hamburger then Mac n cheese? Or how
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do potatoes go on top of hambuger or under? all pictures have them on top
see 1 more questions
Reviews
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This is a great jumping off point recipe for me! I used frozen hash browns to help speed things along, mixed in salt and dried onion. Then I poured the sauce over the potatoes, then the hamburger/onion mixture, and then a bag of green beans on top- it looks so scrumptious! I'm going to top it with cheese at the end and let it melt over the green beans. I can tell it's going to be a killer casserole. -
I loved it!!!! I used red potatoes, I seasoned the hamburger with season all, and I added season salt and shredded cheese the last 5 minutes of baking. -
Yum!! I found this recipe this morning when I was feeling super motivated. By this evening, I was feeling a bit lazier. I made a few changes (sorry). I diced a white onion and sautéed it a couple minutes, then added garlic and ground turkey to the pan until cooked through. I added it to a baking dish with a 28oz bag of frozen shredded hash browns. I made the sauce as instructed. I baked it for an hour. It’s delicious! Very little grease at the top since I used ground turkey. The flavor is wonderful. The best part is, my children ate it up and asked for more. I served it with a side salad and green beans. I’ll definitely be making this again!
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gosh this was delicious, really the only change I made was I used Italian sausage meat in place of ground beef and used red potatoes as that is all I had, I used whole milk and sauteed a small onion, fresh garlic and red chili flakes in the butter before adding in the other ingredients, this is a keeper, thanks for sharing pattikay!...Kitten:) -
Easy to make, not a lot of flavour. It definitely needs ketchup or hot sauce or something. I think if I make it again I will add some fresh herbs or a can of rotel just to give it some umph.
see 35 more reviews
Tweaks
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I used red potatoes and mixed in real chopped bacon bits in with sauce for topping and i also added bacon ranch in my dish after it was prepared :) SO GOOD. AND WHEN i took out my cassorole i added more real chopped bacon bits on the top with panko crisp bits.. and put it in oven a lottle more then took it out. :)
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Ground turkey instead of ground beef, frozen shredded hash browns instead of sliced potatoes, added a whole white onion, baked for 1 hour.
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The only "tweak" I foresee in making this dish would be adding a tsp or so of ground mustard powder to the cheese sauce (that's what I do for my mac and cheese recipe). Otherwise, I plan on following exactly and then "tweaking" as needed with seasoning. Looks yummy... thanks for posting! -
This is a comforting, home-style dish. I used 1 whole small onion and Velveeta cheese in place of the shredded cheese. I didn't really notice any pools of grease in this dish, probably because I used Velveeta. They're right when they say this dish has a tendency to stick to the pan. I sprayed the pan with cooking spray, but it still stuck a bit, due to the cheese sauce overcooking a bit. I will make this recipe again. It's cheap eating at its best.
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I liked it the first time I tried it but I REALLY loved this recipe with ham instead of hamburger. Next time I think I will add green beans to it too. Thanks.
see 2 more tweaks
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
patti k.
granada hills, CA
<p>Welcome to my page! It's a good place to start looking if you need to find me since I come here nearly every day for inspiration as I pursue the noble occupation of feeding family and friends. <br /><br /><img src=http://www.recipezaar.com/members/home/353579/half%20marx-brothers-a-night-at-the-opera.jpg alt= /> <br /><br /><img src=http://www.recipezaar.com/members/home/353579/2640.jpg alt= /> <br /><br /><img src=http://www.recipezaar.com/members/home/353579/kaiserklan.jpg alt= /> <br /><br />My family moved across the country to southern California 7 years ago. The first time I ever set foot on California soil (or anywhere in the West, for that matter) was the day I moved here. I experienced a form of culture/environment shock for about a year - even the air is different out here! For the first year, I would look at the roads and driveways that wind steeply up and down the foothills and think, Man, how does anyone drive on those in the winter? Then I would remember - they do it the same way they do in the summer - with their windows down, wearing shorts and flip-flops. I love the fact that we are near a large city, near the ocean, near the desert, near the mountains - what more could I ask for? And yes, even though I swore it wouldn't happen to me after living for more than 40 years in places with many weather extremes - I now get chilly when the temperature dips below 70 and can barely bring myself to go outdoors if it's raining. However, I do NOT wear a parka and mittens when it's 65 degrees - a sweatshirt or light jacket will do. <br /><br />My husband and I met while attending seminary (I dropped out before finishing one semester but he got a Master of Divinity) and we got married after knowing each other for 6 months. We are quick to tell other people that we do not advise this course of action, but we celebrated our 27th anniversary this year, so I guess sometimes rash decisions work out quite nicely. So with my husband's MDiv and my undergraduate degree in religious studies, we now both work in pharmaceutical marketing research. Just what you would expect, right? I telecommute to the east coast for work each day; I'm primarily a writer/analyst. When I was in college, writing so many research papers and unable to decide what I wanted to do when I grew up, I used to jokingly say that I should find a job writing research papers. More than 20 years later, that?s basically what I do. Cool, huh? <br /><br />Our wonderful son was born when we were married just one year and a mere 15 years later our bright-eyed redhead came into our lives (okay, so she was totally bald till she was nearly 2, but she's definitely red now). My kids are my best and constant reminder that perfect timing is something determined by God and not by me, since I wouldn't have dreamed up such a family-planning scheme, and yet it works just right for us. Here are some pics of the family, most of them taken while we were camping and hiking in the wilds of this beautiful state! <br /><br /><br />
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<a href=http://photobucket.com target=_blank><img src=http://pic.photobucket.com/album/slideshow/wrapper_logo.gif alt= /></a><a href=http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb103/pattikay_inla/?action=view?t=11d18738.pbw target=_blank><img src=http://pic.photobucket.com/album/slideshow/wrapper_viewshow.gif alt= /></a><a href=http://photobucket.com/redirect/album?action=slideshow target=_blank><img src=http://pic.photobucket.com/album/slideshow/wrapper_getyourown.gif alt= /></a> <br /><br /><br /><br />Cooking is a great joy to me ? I constantly marvel that God gave us so many things to eat and so many ways to prepare them! We could have been like cattle or something, eating pretty much the same thing, in the same way, every day for all of our lives. What a privilege to be in charge of feeding our families (and ourselves, of course), and also being able to express our creativity and knowledge of nutritional needs at the same time. (Dessert is a nutritional need, right?) I stumbled on this site when I was searching for recipes that might use up some ingredients I had in the house ? I don?t think I?ve left since then, and I?m happy to have met and shared recipes with so many nice folks around the world. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><img src=http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/DUCHESS13/Zaar%20World%20Tour%203/ZWT3-Participation.gif alt= /> <br /><br /><img src=http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y53/DUCHESS13/Zaar%20World%20Tour%204/ZWTAB-tg.gif alt= /> <br /><br /><img src=http://www.recipezaar.com/members/home/353579/2640.jpg alt= /> <br /><br /><br /><a href=http://www.biblegateway.com/usage/votd/votd2html.php?version=31&jscript=0>View Verse of the Day</a> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><img src=http://www.recipezaar.com/members/home/353579/2640.jpg alt= /></p>
