Creamy Potatoes Au Gratin, Not Your Momma's Recipe!

As a girl visiting a classmate’s home, I was served a dish I loved. It was a new potato dish, the thinly sliced potatoes covered with cheese looked as if it had been made for a magazine. To this day, I can recall sitting at the dinner table and my friend’s mom giving me a big spoon of those potatoes. I remember how the potatoes where carefully arranged in a 9x13 baking dish so they would be stacked with no gaps and how the cheese was a bubbly golden brown. I can’t remember anything else about that meal except that Potatoes Au Gratin.

My mom is not adventurous in the kitchen. When we were children and we talked about a new food we tried somewhere else, it was very rarely prepared for our family. It wasn’t until after my husband and I were married and we went to a reunion where I was reintroduced to yummy Potatoes Au Gratin. After trying two or three times of making this cheesy goodness and something not turning out right, I gave up on having my own Potatoes Au Gratin recipe, until now.

Creamy Potatoes Au Gratin

My friend Sue shared her recipe for Au Gratin Peas and Potatoes on her blog. It was a little different from the other recipes I’ve eaten and I knew I had to try it and so I did. While my husband and son love green peas, they asked me to not add them to future dishes, because they wanted to enjoy them by themselves. That’s okay with me because I don’t have to worry about coming up with another side dish. Yeah, I went there.

While my recipe looks nothing like the dish I was served as a girl, I think it tastes a whole lot better!

One big time saver for me is peel and thinly slice the potatoes before cooking. I usually just boil the potatoes until tender before adding them to the pan.

I made a few slight changes from the original recipe – more bacon and I used a mixture of mayonnaise and sour cream. Just yummy goodness when you think about it!

Oh yes, if you don't have a lot of potatoes, you can still make this dish, just dice your potatoes or cut them in bigger chunks. Anyway you cut them will work out. Just remember you may have to cut back on the mayo, sour cream, and milk.

Creamy Potatoes Au Gratin

Ingredients: 

• 8 bacon slices, chopped
• 1 Tablespoon bacon drippings
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cups cooked potatoes, peeled and sliced
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 8 ounces shredded Cheddar Cheese, divided
• ¼ cup mayonnaise
• ¼ cup sour cream
• ½ cup milk

Directions:

In a small bowl, mix mayonnaise, sour cream, and milk. Set aside.

In a hot frying pan, cook bacon until crisp. Remove bacon and reserve one Tablespoon of drippings in the pan. Add onion and cook until tender; layer with the potatoes, salt, and ½ of the cheese and bacon. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10 minutes. If using cooled potatoes cook until heated through.

Pour mayonnaise and sour cream mixture over the potatoes and bacon. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Simmer for about 5-8 minutes until mayo mixture thickens. Remove from heat and let stand for about 5 minutes before serving.

Do you have a favorite recipe that has a similar story as mine?