Cheese and Bacon Potato Bake
Cheese and bacon potato bake may just be the ultimate side dish. It contains cheese – delicious. Bacon – delicious. And potato – delicious. Potato might just be the ultimate wing man of any main meal. Is there anything potatoes cant do? Fries, roasties, gems, wedges, mash, hashbrowns, they do SO many things, all of them delicious.Â
Today we’re using them in a potato bake, which is delicious with any roast, at a BBQ, with steak, chicken, lamb, and many more pairings. There are so many different versions of potato bake, and I intend to share with you, a lot of them. We’re starting off with my go-to, my most made potato bake – the Cheese and Bacon Potato Bake.Â
It’s so easy to make, simply thinly slice peeled potatoes, finely dice half an onion and mix together the sauce ingredients. Then you’re ready to assemble. In your cooking vessel lay out pieces of potato, slightly overlapping, until you completely fill a layer, then sprinkle with the bacon, onion, cheese and some of the sauce, then keep repeating until it’s all gone. Ideally you’ll finish with a layer of potato and sauce on top, but to be honest it doesn’t really matter.
Cook for one hour covered in foil at 180 Celsius/355 Fahrenheit, until potato is cooked through and a knife easily goes through the potato. Top with cheese, put back in the oven at 220 Celsius/430 Fahrenheit to melt the cheese and to let it brown. After you take it out of the oven you have to let it rest for 15 minutes! Otherwise when you cut out your squares of potato bake it will collapse. Kind of like how you have to rest a lasagne after cooking for the same reason.Â
I really hope you try this recipe soon, and if so, leave me a comment! Thanks, Shaz.
Cheese and Bacon Potato Bake
Equipment
- 1 oven proof dish (I use a 9"x9" square ceramic dish)
- 1 500mL jug
Ingredients
- 1 tsp butter for greasing your cooking vessel
- 700 grams/1.5 lbs starchy potatoes peeled and thinly sliced around 3mm thick
- 100 grams/3.5 oz diced bacon lean, no fat
- ½ small onion finely diced as you can
- 250 grams/8.8 oz grated cheese I used tasty/cheddar
Sauce
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper fresh ground
- 2 tsp chicken stock powder I use continental
- 350ml cream
- 1 tsp cornflour/corn starch
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 180℃/355℉
- Grease your dish thoroughly with the butter.
- Add all of the sauce ingredients into a jug and mix well.
- To your dish, lay out potato slices, slightly overlapping each piece until you have done one layer. Then sprinkle on a third of the bacon, a third of the onion and about 1/6th of the cheese evenly over the potato layer. Gently pour about a quarter of the sauce evenly over the layer. Then start again doing a layer of potato, sprinkle bacon, cheese and onion, pour the sauce, rinse and repeat until all the potato, onion and bacon and sauce is gone. You should still have about half the cheese, hold off on that, we'll add it to the top LATER.
- Cover the dish with aluminium foil, and place in your pre-heated oven for 60 minutes.
- After 60 minutes, remove the dish from the oven and remove the alfoil from the dish. Jab it with a knife gently to see if potato is cooked through. It should push through with little to no resistance. Crank the oven up to 220℃/430℉. Sprinkle the top of the potato bake with the leftover cheese nice and evenly. Return the potato bake to the oven, uncovered this time, for around 20 minutes, or until the potato bake is browned enough for your liking.
- Very important, after you remove the potato bake from the oven you must let it rest for 15 minutes, or it will just collapse everywhere. Rest. then slice and serve.