Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Easy (Make-Ahead) Baked Potato and Bacon Casserole

by 15 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

It’s a Potato and Bacon Casserole. Life is good.

Bacon Baked Potato Casserole

This is so easy we can hardly call it a recipe. I’m pretty sure my family will be having this every other week for the rest of our lives for the following reasons:

  1. Bacon. Of course. And also, cheese.
  2. We can slather it with Spicy Ranch Dressing, which tastes so good I believe I shall become addicted to it.
  3. I can make several of these casseroles at once and freeze them for later, making this easy meal even easier.

This “casserole” is basically baked potatoes cut up in a dish with bacon and cheese all over it. I’m sorry that I can’t make it more complicated for all of you who would rather spend many more minutes sauteing, braising, and broiling. This time, you’ll have to get your steeping and zesting fix elsewhere.

Everyone else: I lovingly suggest that you go scrub some potatoes. You’re having this for dinner tonight.

Baked Potato and Bacon CasseroleYum

Easy (Make-Ahead) Baked Potato and Bacon Casserole
 
Save Print
8 medium-sized potatoes (any variety) 1 pound bacon 2 cups shredded cheddar or colby jack cheese Sour cream, chives, and/or Spicy Ranch Dressing for topping
Author:
Ingredients
  • 8 medium-sized potatoes (any variety)
  • 1 pound bacon
  • 2 cups shredded cheddar or colby jack cheese
  • Sour cream, chives, and/or Spicy Ranch Dressing for topping
Instructions
  1. Scrub and bake potatoes by putting them into a covered dish in a 350° oven for 1½ hours.
  2. In the meantime, cut bacon into bite-sized pieces and cook thoroughly on the stove-top.
  3. Cut baked potatoes into chunks, spreading them out into a 9x13" baking dish.
  4. Sprinkle cooked bacon over the potatoes.
  5. Top with shredded cheese.
  6. Bake in a 350° oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Offer sour cream, chives, and/or Spicy Ranch Dressing to complete this main course. Serve with a salad and another fruit or veggie. It is too easy. Makes 6-8 servings.

Baked Potato Bacon Casserole

To Freeze This Dish: 

Make it as directed above. Allow it to cool completely. Cover and label. Put it in the freezer.

To Reheat and Serve This Dish:

This is my favorite trick. Get the casserole out of the freezer. Cover the frozen dish with foil (somebody needs to invent a 9×13 glass cover for my pyrex dishes). Put the frozen casserole into a COLD oven. Turn the oven on to 250° allowing it to heat up along with the casserole. After one hour, turn the oven up to 350° and bake for one more hour or until the casserole is thawed, heated through, and looks like wonderful cheesy deliciousness.

Let us all add this recipe to our “Reasons to Make Extra Baked Potatoes When We’re Making Baked Potatoes Anyway” list.

7 Ways to Use Baked Potatoes

Switch out the bacon in this casserole for other cooked meats. Switch out the regular potatoes for sweet potatoes. Just whatever you do, try it with the Spicy Ranch Dressing. Ah-mazing.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Make Extra Baked Potatoes on Purpose Because…

by 15 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

7 Ways to Use Baked Potatoes

What’s better than a baked potato? A baked potato with butter. Obviously.

But also, I have found that leftover baked potatoes can be a great meal-brain-time saver. This is why I typically bake twice (at least) as many baked potatoes as we will need for one meal.

First, let us be reminded of my favorite way to bake potatoes – particularly in the summertime – but also pretty much all the time because it’s just so easy:

How to Bake Potatoes in the Crock Pot (Without Foil)

I typically have my boys scrub enough potatoes to completely fill the crock pot since I know having the leftovers will give me another easy meal later in the week.

What do I make with leftover baked potatoes?

1. Homemade Frozen Hashbrowns or Hashbrown Patties

We shred baked potatoes into hashbrowns for the freezer. Oh how I love pulling these out for a fast side dish. If I take the time to freeze them into hashbrown patties, they are an extra special treat.

Homemade Hashbrown Patties

2. Fried Potatoes

Leftover baked potatoes make the best fried potatoes. We love to chop them up into a skillet with butter and sea salt. They cook up quickly since they have already been baked, and they have incredible flavor!

3. Potato and Egg Scramble

A favorite breakfast around here includes leftover baked potatoes fried in butter, then scrambled up with eggs.

4. Baked Potato and Bacon Casserole

This can be made and frozen, which makes an easy meal even easier. Grab the recipe here.

Bacon Baked Potato Casserole

5. Potato Veggie Skillet

Leftover baked potatoes, cut up and fried in butter with veggies like onions and sweet peppers (and mushrooms and broccoli and spinach and asparagus) is incredible.

 6. Baked Potato Soup

If I have leftover baked potatoes, I can make my Potato Soup recipe super quickly. The baked potatoes give the soup a great flavor!

7. Taco Potato Skillet

This makes a super fast meal! Simply brown meat, add taco seasoning, then add chopped leftover baked potatoes – cooking until it is heated through. Top with shredded cheese. Serve with veggies. My family loves this meal. I love it because I can make it in about 15 minutes with little effort.

taco potato skillet 3

What do you do with leftover baked potatoes?

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

How to Bake Potatoes in a Crock Pot (without foil)

by 93 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Your crock pot is here, once again, to save the day! Allow me to fill you in on the great and easy way to bake potatoes in a crock pot!

baked_potatoes

In an effort to avoid turning on my oven this week to bake potatoes, it occurred to me that maybe I could bake them in my crock pot. Am I a genius or what?

Or what.  My online search told me that others had already been there done that – and blogged about it too. So others are the geniuses, and I am a few years late in learning this wonderful potato baking method.

I will, however, take the credit for figuring out that you don’t have to mess with wrapping each potato in foil. All of the instructions I found online included wrapping each potato lovingly in foil. I tend to skip this extra step in an effort to save time and to avoid putting aluminum on my food. Could foil-less potatoes be baked in a crock pot? I decided to try and see.

I won’t keep you in suspense, because surely you’ve never wondered something so much in your life and the title of this post didn’t give away the answer even a little bit. You can, indeed, throw a plain ol’ potato in the crock pot and let it bake without foil. You don’t even need to poke the potatoes first. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

Bake Your Potatoes in the Crock Pot

Yum

Here is the detailed break-down of the oven-less, foil-less, poke-less, practically effort-less crock pot baked potato…

How To Bake Potatoes in a Crock Pot

1. Scrub dirt off of potatoes (I always use red or gold potatoes as they tend to work much better, plus they are more nourishing.)
2. Place potatoes in crock pot
3. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until potatoes are tender

You can cook as many potatoes as you need. You can use any size or variety of potato. And if possible, I would suggest making extras so that you can use your leftovers to make Homemade Hashbrowns.

How should you serve your baked potato? Well, I personally love mine with lots of butter and sea salt. I’m sure you’re shocked. Sometimes we sprinkle on some cheese and call it lunch, along with a side of veggies and fruit.

But if you really want a good baked potato meal, which is super easy and perfect in the summertime (now that we know how to avoid heating our ovens for this fine item), Taco Potatoes are awesome.

taco_potato_1

Or, how about topping your baked potato with chopped ham, chicken, or turkey, sour cream, shredded cheddar, and broccoli. So, so good.

baked_potato_3

What’s your favorite way to top a baked potato? Ever tried making baked potatoes in the crock pot?  Yeah, I bet I know what you’re having for lunch tomorrow…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I always make extra baked potatoes on purpose. Here’s why:

7 Ways to Use Baked Potatoes

Do you love the idea of regularly putting Simple Meals on the table like we do? Become a Simple Meals member and we’ll do all your weekly meal thinking and planning for you! Get all the details here!

728x90

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!