If you want easy, make this ham and cheese hash brown dish
Hash browns fried to golden brown crispiness outside with an interior of slightly firm but fully cooked potato shreds inside is the mark of a skilled cook. A cook, in my opinion, who should not be underappreciated.
Hash browns baked in a casserole is the mark of a cook who has mastered the art of making frozen pizza, instant ramen, and boxed mac and cheese. A casserole, in my opinion, that should not be underappreciated.
Potato’s mild mannered flavor allows salty, smoky ham and sharp cheddar flavors to unite and make mouths happy.
Plus, this casserole recipe from McCain Foods is a nice diversion from all the reader-submitted zucchini recipes I’ve been testing for my next ingestigative report.
Insights
Mild ham, cheese and potato flavors are throughout. I mean, what did you expect? We’ve all had ham, hash browns and cheese before. The hash browns cooked evenly throughout without getting soggy.
Just measure, stir, pour and bake — easier than making a box of mac and cheese.
Use your biggest mixing bowl or risk splashing your counters with hash brown, cheese and ham bits as they slosh over the sides.
There’s nearly two pounds of potatoes, three cups of cheese and 12 ounces of ham in this recipe, and yet, we are to believe that rounding up the black pepper from 3⁄4 to 1 teaspoon will throw off the entire flavor profile? Deciding to live on the edge, I not only put in a full teaspoon of black pepper but also added a couple extra dashes. (It might be my most adventurous undertaking this week.) Spoiler alert: it turned out fine.
I sprayed the baking dish because I didn’t want to risk lots of sticky bits creating unnecessary work for the Higgins Eats household’s head engineer of dish sanitation.
Ham and Cheddar Hash Brown Casserole
12 ounces ham or Canadian bacon, chopped
3 cups cheddar cheese, grated
30 ounces shredded hash browns
3 cups milk
11⁄2 teaspoons salt
3⁄4 teaspoon black pepper
Heat oven to 400 degrees
Overall, this casserole is easily adaptable to meet your tastes. Add diced green pepper and onion or mushrooms, if you dare. Maybe extra sharp cheddar or Swiss cheese. It could easily go vegetarian by cutting the ham. Try mixing in a few dashes of liquid smoke to replace ham’s smoky notes.
In a large bowl, stir the ham and grated cheese together, then set aside 1⁄4 of the mixture.
Add frozen hash browns, milk, salt and pepper to the bowl and stir until blended.
Pour into a 9” x 13” baking dish and gently level the surface with spatula.
Sprinkle remaining ham and cheese mix over the top of the casserole.
Bake, uncovered, for 50 to 60 minutes until top is crispy and cheese is melted.
(Recipe from McCain Foods)
ABOUT THIS SERIES: Daniel Higgins tests recipes found on food packages in his very average kitchen with moderately above average cooking talent and meh presentation skills. Contact him at dphiggin@gannett.com. Follow @HigginsEats on Twitter and Instagram and like on Facebook.