Easy Cheesy Potatoes are sure to become a favorite side dish in your house. Tender potatoes in a short-cut cheese sauce are baked until golden and bubbly!
This potato casserole will elevate any meal into a feast. Serve this rich, savory side dish with glazed ham, baked chicken legs or roasted pork tenderloin.
Cheesy Potato Ingredients
While the obvious ingredient is potatoes we add lots of cheddar cheese, sour cream, butter, soup, and green onions finish out this easy dish.
You can vary these ingredients to suit your taste or use what you have on hand.
- Cheese: I find that cheddar cheese produces the best sauce with the most flavor, especially if you use extra-sharp but a nice swiss or your fave cheese will work just fine!
- Potatoes: Almost any kind of potatoes will work for this recipe.
- In a hurry? Use country style hash browned potatoes in place of boiling your own potatoes.
- Choose thin skinned potatoes (like Yukon gold or red potatoes) and skip the peeling
- Canned Soup: Use any kind of condensed “cream of” canned soup in this recipe. I love using homemade condensed mushroom soup to control the salt.
If you want to make your cheesy potato bake more of a one-pot meal, then go ahead and add a cup or two of diced ham or some poached chicken breasts (or leftover roast chicken). Even ground beef would be great in this casserole!
How to Make Cheesy Potatoes (with real potatoes)
This casserole recipe is a simple variation of scalloped potatoes, but with diced potatoes and requires less prep thanks to an easy-to-make sauce. Here’s how easy it is to make cheesy potatoes in the oven:
- Boil the diced potatoes until tender.
- Melt the butter and mix in the remaining ingredients. Save some cheese to sprinkle on top.
- Combine all the ingredients together, including the cooked potatoes, and transfer to a greased casserole dish.
- Top with the remainder of the cheese and bake until bubbling and browned.
Don’t cover these cheesy potatoes while baking. You want the top to get golden brown.
Not ready to bake it yet? Cheesy potatoes will keep in the refrigerator for 2-3 days before baking. So make this dish extra easy by taking care of all the prep work the day before! Just pop them in the oven following the recipe and you are ready to enjoy.
Can You Freeze Cheesy Potato Casserole?
Cheesy potatoes come out of the oven tender and delicious! You can make and bake this casserole ahead of time and freeze it as well. Or, freeze the leftovers, if there are any!
Let this dish thaw before baking at 400F for about an hour, or until piping hot and the cheese is nicely browned.
Our Fave Potato Sides
- The BEST Mashed Potatoes – Perfection. Buttery, creamy and delicious!
- Twice Baked Potato Casserole – Fully loaded with bacon, cheese and green onions.
- Easy Oven Roasted Potatoes – Quick prep, the perfect side for any meal.
- Perfect Baked Potatoes – Great for topping with your favorites!
- Potatoes Au Gratin – Creamy, cheesy and delicious… everything a potato should be!
Easy Cheesy Potatoes
Ingredients
- 3 pounds diced potatoes or 30 ounces country style hash browns
- ¼ cup butter melted
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup cream of chicken soup or cream of cheddar
- ¼ cup green onion chopped
- 2 cup cheddar cheese divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375˚F and grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
- If using fresh potatoes, place in a saucepan with cold water. Simmer 12-14 minutes or until fork tender. Drain and allow to cool slightly.
- Melt butter, add sour cream, soup, onion and 1 ½ cups cheese.
- Toss in the potatoes (or frozen hash brown potatoes) and combine. Spread into a prepared baking dish.
- Top with remaining cheese and bake for 28-30 minutes or until browned and bubbly.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Side Dish
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I just tried cooking this recipe and it is amazing. Used a mix of red and gold potatoes – so delicious! I’m not even a potato lover but this was just so satisfying – looking forward to cooking this for my brother, who has always loved taters. Thanks for this recipe – it’s a keeper!
I made this for company and it was excellent! I made it mostly as written but without the green onion because one guest doesn’t like them. I added a little bit of shredded parmesan I had on hand, and also cooked for about an extra 25 mins or so because I had an egg casserole going at the same time. It was brown, bubbly, and amazing!
One recipe calls for cream of chedder the other cream of mushroom. which would be best?
also, thoughts on addimg smoked ham chopped up? hoping to make for Easter brunch!
Either would work just fine Angie. I would use whatever I have on hand! Adding ham is a great idea!
made this with fresh potatoes followed recipe to a t perfect !!family fighting over scraping the pan
bake at what temperature and for how long?
For the full recipe, including temperature and times, you can scroll down to the bottom or hit “jump to recipe” in the top header beside the recipe title. I hope this helps Kathryn!
I haven’t made this yet… but the only “Cream of Chicken soup” I could find is condensed soup. Do I mix it with water first to make soup… or is the recipe calling for just the “Condensed” contents?
Great question Chad! You use the soup directly out of the can, condensed. Enjoy the recipe!
If you’re going with fresh potatoes, why use canned cream soup? 2T butter and 2T flour for a roux, then 1.5 cups milk to make a béchamel is all it takes!! might need a little extra seasoning, but now it’s all from scratch!!! And so much better!!!
DELICIOUS!!
Sounds like a different recipe, you should post that. This one’s perfect as written, love it!
I made these for Christmas, and they were a big hit. I had several relatives argue over who would take home the leftovers, so we had to split them evenly! Absolutely yummy.
Husband loved it! I edited the recipe just a little bit, I used cream of mushroom soup instead of cream of chicken and Russian high fat sour cream instead of regular sour cream. It was so good and hearty, 10/10 would recommend.
Can I use cream of mushroom soup instead of cream of chicken? Will that change the flavor too much?
While it will slightly change the flavor Noemi, it will still be delicious! If you try it I would love to hear how it turns out!
Can you bake this the day before, refrigerate, and then warm up? If so, what temperature works for warming it up?
Absolutely Margaret. I would reheat at 400 F until heated through. Enjoy!
made this with diced ham and added a diced onion…it was amazing! Keeper recipe for sure
Hi, I was wondering a couple things! I saw that you can triple the recipe, would this change the cook time? If so, how long?
How many oz of hash browns would I need for a triple bash? That number doesn’t change on the recipe when I click the 3x just the lbs changes.
If I use frozen hash browns do I need to cook them first or can I put them in frozen?
Hi Dee! No need to thaw or cook frozen potatoes, we add them just like that.
When using the multiplier it only multiplies the first number in the ingredient, not the notes or the instructions. In this case if you are tripling the recipe you will need 9 pounds of diced potatoes, or 90 ounces of hashbrowns. The cook time will depend on how full your dish is. If the pan is very full, it may need extra time to heat through (perhaps an extra 15 minutes, you’ll just want to check that the center is warm). As another option, you could make three 9×13 pans and leave the cook time the same.
I hope this helps. Enjoy!