Funeral Potatoes Casserole Recipe

Funeral potatoes don’t fill the soul with joy, until you’ve tasted them. There’s lots of food tied to an event that are delicious, and you don’t always have to eat them on that exact day. Birthday cake, Sunday dinner… you get the point?

 Funeral potatoes are named thus because they are traditionally served at funerals. But if you are looking for an easy to prepare side dish to cater for the masses (hopefully in happier times) then our Funeral Potatoes recipe should fill the bill.

How To Make Funeral Potatoes

Make no mistake, funeral potatoes are delicious. They are a real homely comfort food. Which is pretty good considering how they are named. The bulk of the dish is made up of hash browns (hence the potato part). But this isn’t what makes it. When you add more than a subtle amount of cheese, cream and even chicken, you’ll create a taste sensation. This is of course all topped with a crispy golden crust.

Our funeral potatoes recipe tastes great, but isn’t particularly complicated. You wont need much except for a square roasting pan and a bowl…

Oh and a can opener, you’ll see why in the recipe.

The best thing about this recipe is that most of the ingredients can be found easily and several can be stored almost indefinitely. The hash browns we use are frozen. We also use canned chicken soup. So aside from the sour cream and shredded cheese everything else will keep for a good amount of time, meaning you can make them pretty much whenever you want.

If you haven’t got hash browns don’t worry as we are going to give you a few alternatives. They might not be quite as authentic, but the taste of the dish will be pretty similar.

Funeral Potatoes

4 from 15 votes

Recipe by Laura Ritterman Course: SidesCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

16

servings

Prep time

10

minutes

Cooking time

45

minutes

Calories

236

kcal

Making

Ingredients

• 2 large packs of frozen cubed hash browns

• 16 oz 16 sour cream or natural yoghurt

• 1 can 1 of chicken soup

• 8 oz 8 of salted butter

• A generous pinch of salt, to taste

• ½ tablespoon of onion granules or powder

• 16 oz 16 cheddar cheese

• 3 handfuls of crushed cornflakes

Directions

• Around 2-3 hours prior to cooking take your cubed has browns out of the freezer and leave to thaw. Half an hour before cooking, preheat the oven to 340 degrees Fahrenheit.
• In a separate bowl add the sour cream, the chicken soup, half of the butter and the seasoning and cheese. Give the bowl a really good stir to ensure that the entire sauce mixture is smooth and combined.
• Tip your hash browns from the dish into a large ovenproof dish or pan. Then, add your sauce mixture.  Give the entire pan a gentle stir until all the potatoes are coated by the sauce mixture.
• In a medium pan add the remaining half of the butter and place on a low light until the mutter has melted. Add the crushed cornflakes and give the pan a stir until your crumbs are coated in butter.
• Using a spoon sprinkle your cornflake and butter mixture over the saucy potatoes, until you have covered the entire top of the dish.
• Bake for 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
• Serve and enjoy.

Notes

• The chicken soup can also be substituted. If you haven’t got a can of chicken soup, half a cup of chicken stock mixed with half a cup of cream will produce a similar effect.
• We like to make sure our crispy topping gets an even coating of butter for uniform crispness and texture. We find the best way to do this is to melt the butter and then stir in the cornflakes, before sprinkling it over the top of the dish.
• Sour cream works really well in this recipe. If you like natural yoghurt then you can use this instead.
• You can also make this casserole funeral potatoes with real potatoes if you wish by substituting them in.

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Tips and Tricks

• Ok so we promised. If you don’t have hash brown cubes don’t worry. Essentially all hash browns are is grated potato and onion. With that in mind all you need to do is grate 3 large potatoes, wash them in really cold water, squeeze them in a kitchen towel until the moisture has gone and fry them with a finely chopped onion. Allow to cool and then use them in exactly the same way as described in the rest of the recipe.
• If you struggle to fins hash brown cubes then simply buy normal frozen hash browns. After defrosting you can chop them into cubes using a sharp knife. The taste will be identical to our recipe.
• We use cornflakes to create the crispy crust in this recipe. IF you don’t have cornflakes there are other options available. You can use panko breadcrumbs, or as a rustic alternative why not place a couple of slices of white bread into a blender? Another alternative which works well is to use oatmeal. We have even been forced to use crushed tortilla chips on one occasion, you’ll be pleased to know these worked really well too
• You can make this dish in advance. If you choose to this leave the topping until the time that you need to serve it. Otherwise make the dish, allow to cool and then cover and freeze. It will take between 4-8 hours to thaw. Once it is no longer frozen add the topping and bake as normal.
• This recipe is scalable. Our funeral potatoes recipe will easily feed around 16 people. If you need more, simply double up on the ingredients, oh and don’t forget to use a bigger oven dish!

FAQs

Conclusion

As long as this dish doesn’t bring back bad memories for anyone you are really going to enjoy it. It makes the ideal party food. Just serve the entire oven dish wholesale with a large spoon and some side plates so that your guests can help themselves. (Hint, they absolutely will as it’s super delicious). Our funeral potatoes recipe is a great side dish for grilled meats and fish. It isn’t too strong in flavor so can be used as an accompaniment for almost everything. If you’ve enjoyed it, why not leave a comment below?