Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes recipe is one of our favorite side dishes! Thinly sliced potatoes covered in a cheesy sauce makes this classic casserole a perfect side with your holiday ham or an everyday dinner!
What goes with scalloped potatoes? Try our Simple Roast Turkey Recipe or this delicious Brown Butter Baked Ham – both go perfectly with this scalloped potato recipe!
An Easy Scalloped Potatoes Recipe
The best recipe around the holidays are not only the ones that taste super amazing and drool-worthy, but the ones that can be prepped and ready ahead of time! These cheesy Scalloped Potatoes fall into all of those categories. Drool-worthy and amazing, definitely. A totally make ahead side dish? Yep, that too.
So when you’re planning out your Christmas, New Year’s Eve or just family dinner, get a few recipes like this one that will make you look like a rockstar in the kitchen!
How To Make The Best Scalloped Potatoes!
First of all, it’s all about how you slice the potatoes. They need to be thin, but no too thin that they break apart and turn into mush when you go to serve them. An 1/8 inch slice is the perfect size for these scalloped potatoes.
How do you get them so thin and even? A mandoline slicer is really the best tool!
You cab grab one right with that affiliate link, they really are pretty cheap and we use ours for so many different recipes! Try making these Homemade Shoestring French Fries with a different blade on the mandoline slicer, or these Zucchini Enchiladas with super thin slices of zucchini instead of pasta!
The second tip is that you need to make the sauce that goes into this potato casserole pretty darn thick. Just follow the directions for this scalloped potato recipe and you’ll be fine.
But some recipes have a much thinner sauce and once that goes into the oven for almost an hour will turn very runny and loose. We don’t want runny scalloped potatoes ever, so this sauce recipe is totally perfect.
Another tip to making the best scalloped potatoes is when you put on the cheese. Most recipes call for adding the cheese on top and baking it like you see here, but I think it needs to wait.
Scalloped Potatoes bake for about an hour, a fairly long time, and the cheese doesn’t need that long to melt. I suggest adding the cheese after the initial 35 minutes baking time.
That way your cheesy topping looks perfectly golden and melty, just like this.
Adding the cheese layer to the potatoes for the entire cooking time might cause the cheese to “break” and release some oil. Again, we don’t want runny scalloped potatoes and we don’t want oily scalloped potatoes.
Perfectly creamy, cheesy, slightly crisp on top potatoes are what a scalloped potato recipe is all about.
What Kind Of Cheese Can I Use To Make Scalloped Potatoes?
We stuck with cheddar cheese for our recipe, but you can use a lot of different types of cheese to make scalloped potatoes!
- White Cheddar Cheese
- Monterey Jack Cheese or Pepper Jack
- Gruyere Cheese
- Mozzarella Cheese
- Asiago Cheese
- Fontina Cheese
- Gouda or Smoked Gouda Cheese
Just follow our basic recipe here and swap out the cheddar cheese for whichever cheese you are using. You can even use two different types of cheeses that you think go well together like gruyere and cheddar or Mozzarella and Asiago.
PIN IT!
Looking For More Holiday Side Dish Recipes?
- Twice Baked Potato Casserole
- Bourbon Sweet Potato Casserole
- The BEST Sausage Stuffing
- Slow Cooker Loaded Baked Beans
- Crock Pot Crispy Brussels Sprouts
- The BEST Brussels Sprouts Casserole
Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 60 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 10 servings 1x
This Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes recipe is one of our favorite side dishes! Thinly sliced potatoes covered in a cheesy sauce makes this classic casserole a perfect side.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 cup onion, diced
- 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 2 cups whole milk
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- 2 teaspoon kosher salt
- Fresh black pepper to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped
- 4 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced 1/8″ thick
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, divided
- 2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, divided (yellow or white)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Ad the onion and cook for 5 minutes, stirring until softened. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute longer.
- Sprinkle the flour over the onions and garlic and stir until all the flour is combined. Cook the flour out for 1 minute, then slowly pour in the chicken stock, whisking as you pour.
- Once the flour is combined with the stock, pour in the milk and add the cream cheese, salt, pepper, paprika, thyme and 1/4 cup of the parmesan cheese. Whisk the sauce together to blend the cream cheese and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat.
- Spray a 9″ x 13″ casserole dish with cooking spray. Add a layer of the sliced potatoes (about half) into an even layer. Season the sliced potatoes with more salt and pepper, then add half of the sauce and spread out to cover the potatoes. Add 1 cup of the cheddar cheese on top of the sauce in an even layer.
- Add the rest of the potatoes, season with more salt and pepper, then the rest of the sauce.
- Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the casserole dish from the oven and top the potatoes with the remaining cup of cheddar cheese and the remaining 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese.
- Place the potatoes back into the oven, uncovered for another 25 minutes. After you remove the scalloped potatoes from the oven, check to make sure they are fork tender. If some are still firm, cover the baking dish again and place back into the oven for another 10 minutes.
- Garnish with additional fresh thyme and more parmesan cheese if desired.
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American