These cheesy skillet scallop potatoes are some of the best! Very flavorful, perfectly cooked, and is super cheesy! This dish isn’t too hard, maybe a little time consuming but it’s worth every second.
But fun fact, did you know what we know as scalloped potatoes isn’t really what it is? Scalloped potatoes are thin, layered potatoes with a white sauce (no cheese), but au gratin potatoes are thin, layered potatoes with cheese sauce! Super similar and often mixed up. But in this post, I will keep calling them scalloped potatoes.
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds (7-7.5 pounds) potatoes, thinly sliced
- 4 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 c flour
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 3 cup shredded cheddar cheese, plus more for assembly
- 1 pound of ground beef (optional)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter, add in the onions and let cook till soft.
Add in the flour and seasonings; keep whisking
Add the liquid, continue whisking so that it doesn’t stick. It will eventually thicken, be patient with it.
Once it thickens, add the cheese. The cheese will help it thicken even more. You want a nice thick sauce, but not so thick you can’t easily spread it over the potatoes. Set the sauce aside.
In a skillet, cook the ground beef till completely cooked, then mix it into the cheese sauce..
In a larger pot, bring water to boil and then stick the potatoes in until just starting to turn translucent, 5-6 minutes. Keep an eye on them, you do not want them to overcook. Once they’re done, drain them and cool them off with cold water.
Grab your sliced potatoes, salt, pepper, sauce, shredded cheese, and skillet. Set up a little “station” where you can easily assemble it.
Grease your skillet all the way around, and start layering the potatoes in a single layer. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on it and cover the potato layer with the sauce and shredded cheese, repeat till your skillet is filled. I sometimes like to add fresh Parmesan cheese to the top along with cheddar cheese, but is optional.
Put the skillet into the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes or until melted.
Take out of the oven and let sit 5 minutes to cool off a little. then dig in!
Notes:
- To get your potatoes evenly and thinly slice, I’d recommend using a mandoline (I use the attachment on my spiralizer). It’s so much easier than cutting them one by one, but if that’s all you have that’s totally fine!
- You can also use leftover chicken instead of beef
- What kind of skillet should I use? For this recipe, I use a cast iron; it works great and is super easy! For other skillets, I can’t say for sure if they’ll work, but make sure it’s oven-proof. If it’s non-stick, I’d recommend still grease it a little because baked cheese on pans is no fun to get off.
- Do I need to pre-cook the potatoes? Technically no, but to have a fool-proof scallop potatoes dish I would 100% recommend it. When I’ve made this dish without pre-cooking it, some of the potatoes still came out quite raw. So pre-cooking insures that all the potatoes are cooked.
~Becky 🙂
Thank you for the tip to pre-cook the potatoes. I have a funny story. Lucia, my daughter, my husband and myself drove quite a while away to visit a shut-in friend. Before we left, we told Nathaniel, my son to watch the scalloped potatoes in the oven and take them out in about 45 min.s “They should be done by then”, I so assuredly said. He called on my cell about 3 times every 45 minutes and said “They are still hard”. We drove all the way home, and they only finished by the time we got home and if my memory serves me, they may have not been done even then. Oh boy! We were so hungry!!
Haha, yes exactly! 🙂