Loaded Mashed Potato Casserole
Loaded Mashed Potato Casserole is the perfect side dish for any occasion. If you’re looking for a change from classic mashed potatoes, try this irresistibly creamy, loaded mashed potatoes recipe with cheese and bacon.
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Hey, hey! Valentina with Valentina’s Corner sharing a recipe for Mashed Potato Casserole!
Mashed potatoes are always a great side to serve for Meatloaf or any meal, because are effortless to make and so filling. However, at big parties like a Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas party, you tend to want to dress up plain mashed potatoes. That’s where this potato casserole comes to life! Creamy mashed potatoes topped with cheese, crispy bacon and chives.
This dish is everything you could ask for in a side dish. The best part – the dish may be prepared in advance making it the perfect side for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Winner!
How to Make Loaded Mashed Potato Casserole:
- Cook, drain and mash the potatoes
- Mash in the hot milk/butter/sour cream mixture until well incorporated
- Spread mashed potatoes into a baking dish and top with cooked bacon and cheese
- Cover dish with foil and bake until cheese is melty.
TIP: If you are not baking the casserole immediately, allow the potatoes to cool before adding the cheese.
Toppings for Loaded Mashed Potatoes-
Top potato casserole with fresh chives, green onions, parsley or cilantro for added flavor and appeal.
Though the loaded cheese and bacon is enough for the baked mashed potatoes. Serving them with a side of sour cream really is wonderful. It feels like you’re enjoying a loaded baked potato.
What cheese should be used for Loaded Potato Casserole?
You really can’t go wrong with any cheese for this potato casserole. Use your favorite cheese:
- Mexican Four Cheese
- Colby Jack
- or a combination of Mild Cheddar and Mozzarella
TIP: Cheese ALWAYS performs better when freshly shredded as it contains fewer preservatives. Purchase a block of cheese and grate it yourself.
Other SIDE dishes to try for the Holidays:
- Fried Zucchini– The mayo garlic spread is irresistible.
- Cranberry Sauce- Perfect side to go along with your Turkey.
- Creamy Green Bean Casserole– Classic dish for the Holidays.
- Egg Salad– the easiest side salad
Loaded Mashed Potato Casserole
Ingredients
- 2 ½ lbs russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes
- 1 tsp salt , or to taste
- 3/4 cup milk, (whole or 2% milk)
- 8 Tbsp unsalted butter
- ¼ cup sour cream
- 8 oz Colby Jack cheese, freshly shredded
- 8 oz bacon, chopped
- 2 Tbsp green onion or chives , to garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375˚F. Place potatoes in a pot, cover with enough water to submerge potatoes. Bring to a boil over medium/high heat then reduce heat to medium and season potatoes will 1 tsp salt. Cook until potatoes are easily pierced with a knife then drain well.
- Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, add the butter and milk and cook until butter is melted. Turn the heat off, keep saucepan on the stovetop to keep the milk hot. Add the sour cream and whisk until combined.
- Mash or beat potatoes with a mixer until creamy. Add the milk mixture and continue mixing until well incorporated. Transfer potatoes to a baking dish.
- On a medium skillet, saute chopped bacon until golden brown. Sprinkle bacon over potatoes and top with shredded cheese.
- Cover baking dish with foil and bake at 375˚F for 25 minutes. Remove foil and cook an additional 10 minutes, or until cheese melts and potatoes are hot.
Nutrition Per Serving
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I hope your whole family will love this easy and delicious Loaded Mashed Potatoes Recipe!
Valentina Ablaev
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
Hi Natasha!
I love your recipes and often make them for Holidays and my family is always full of praise.
I doubled this recipe and put it in a 9×13. Its going into the fridge overnight. I plan to leave the topping off to start with so I can stir it as I heat it in the oven and then add the remaining ingredients about half way through. However, I’m wondering if I should cover it to avoid it drying out until I add the cheese and bacon. Also how long do you think it will take? I planning maybe an hour all together, bit not sure.
Hi Regina! I have not tested that to give specific instructions. If you are starting out with refrigerated potatoes, they will likely need some extra time.
In a quick last minute recipe, could I use store bought (refrigerated) mashed potato’s ? Add sour cream – nuke the. Add cheese bacon and place in oven to furnish?
Hi Cyndie, I haven’t tried those substitutions, so I can’t speak to that. Substitutions may hinder the recipe outcome.
I love this recipe! I made a few additions… I sautéed the white tops of the scallions and half of a Vidalia onion (chopped) in the leftover bacon grease, then added this and some of the bacon and cheese into the potatoes before spreading mixture into pan. Still topped with remaining cheese and bacon, but I enjoyed having a little extra in the potatoes!
Thanks for the great recipe!
Hi Shayna! Thank you for the review and for sharing your experience. I’m so glad you enjoy this recipe.
Natasha
I love your recipes and try most of them .
Do you do any cook books please
Beast wishes for you and your family for 2022
Hi Norma, I don’t have a cookbook out yet, but it’s on my list of life goals.
Loved this recipe. I added finely chopped green onions and sprinkled fresh chopped parsley on top right before serving.
Good to know that you enjoyed this recipe, Kathie!
I would love to make this for Christmas dinner, but all I have is Red potatoes; lots of them. Would these kind of potatoes work well for this recipe? Thanks so much.
Hello Diane, I think that will work fine since red potatoes have more moisture. If you give that a try, please share with us how it goes.
Can I freeze this recipe?
Hi Anna, I haven’t tested that but I imagine it would work.
Love this recipe it is sooooo good! The first time I made them I went immediately to the oven, the second time I made them the day before and then put them in the oven the second day (same temp, but baked them for 50 minutes and 10 minutes uncovered). Both were equally yummy!
That’s so great, Randy! I’m so happy you enjoyed this recipe!
My family loves these potatoes! What would be your advice to keeping them warm in a crock pot without drying out? Thanks!
Hi Mary, depending on how long they’re in there I would keep it on a warm or low heat setting.
hi, what if i dont have a electric mixer?? also what size baking dish did you use for this recipe?
Hi Brianna, you can mix it manually but it’s not going to be as smooth as when using an electric mixer. Mine was 9×9 but an 8×8 will also work.
It’s in the oven
Sounds good, I hope you love it!
I enjoy your recipes and watching you make them. I am 72 now and look for new ways to enjoy comfort foods and party foods. I do not analize content of your recipe. I make the ones I like. AND…. I want to enjoy the rest of my life and you are such an entertaining individual
Thank you for always trusting my recipes, Linda. I hope that you will love every recipe that you will try!
I am making for Thanksgiving and have prepared and placed the in a baking dish in the refrigerator. I am hoping I can simply place in the oven on thanksgiving day and they will cook up fine. Now I’m getting nervous that they won’t come out okay after sitting . . . any thoughts or tips would be greatly appreciated ??
Hi Wendy, that should still work, just ensure that it is hot in the center and well heated through since it will take a little longer to bake a casserole that is coming from the refrigerator.
Great! Thank You So Much for the quick reply
I made this today and they were great! Everyone loved them! Thanks for the tasty recipe!
Yay so great to hear that Jessie. Thank you for your awesome feedback!
Help! Ok I followed the recipe exactly, but once I was done, took it out of the oven and tasted it… it was extremely bland except for the bacon flavour. I looked back at the recipe to see if I missed anything and I realised that the recipe never recommended adding salt, pepper, any spice, etc to taste. The pics above look as if there is some pepper added… How much would you recommend adding to this amount of potatoes?
Hi Lori, the pepper on top was more of a garnish. We did add salt to the potato water while cooking and you can add more if desired. With the salty bacon and cheese, it seemed like enough salt, but you can add it to taste into the mashed potatoes.
I added a little garlic powder to mine and it was fantastic!
Thank you so much for sharing that with us Michelle!!
creamy potatoes topped with melted cheese & crispy bacon. Ymmm.
Isn’t it the best! We absolutely love it!
I usually cook my ribs on 275 if I wanted to throw this in the oven to cook with the ribs, how long should I cook it for?
Hi Lisa, without experimenting it is hard to say how long it would take with two items in the oven at the same time. If you experiment please let me know how you like that.
Hello Natasha, no doubt your recipes seem marvelous and certainly they should taste great. But with all due respect I must tell you this, I’ve seen a lot of your recipes published here and they are all extremely high in saturated fat reaching almost the 100% amount of recommended sat fat per day, and others surpassing it blatantly. (and people don’t eat 1 time per day but 3-4 times/day), it almost looks like that you’d enjoy adding excessive sources of unhealthy saturated fat unnecessarily. For example this recipe contains the shocking and noxious 144% of saturated fat per serving, you certainly almost never find that amount dangerous fat in traditional home cuisine nor in the fattest of processed meals either. This recipe includes so many and not that necessary sources of saturated fat. It’s not mandatory to include in one recipe butter plus sour cream which already has almost as much sat fat as butter, plus you add up whole milk in the presence of the former fats and the already greasy bacon, so you could cut up sat fat by changing the butter for olive oil or other vegetable oil and use some reduced fat sour cream or non-fat milk in order to preserve the bacon in the recipe. If you think that by adding so many sources of fat the dish is gonna taste great and will be hearty that’s not always the case. You can accomplish so by adding some herbs and spices that aren’t present in this recipe; most of of the loaded recipes call it crushed, whole or mashed potatoes include herbs and spices to improve the flavor instead of excessive fat. Please don’t take this the wrong way, i’m not attacking you, none the least, I’m but providing other options to reduce the unhealthy levels of sat fat which everybody knows is the main cause of deaths in the entire world, and before is said that people will eat this once a month or every two months we know that’s not true, due to your recipes look so appealing they will cook them in a regular way, and I’ve seen people’s comments here, they want to make your recipes in a regular basis.
Thank you for sharing that feedback.
No, thank you for taking the time and reading it.
With all due respect, saturated fat is not the main cause of death around the world… SUGAR would be the culprit you are looking for. Fat was framed. I encourage you to look into recent research data that indicates that the sugar industry had a lot to do with the demonization of fat.
I would like to say first of all thank you sir for giving your opinion in a kind and respectful way. And yes you’re completely right about added sugars too (something that abounds here, in this website too, in an alarming rate and amount), weather they are organic or refined, they’re all the devil in disguise. But saturated fats haven’t been all cleared out just yet, studies are not so fully conclusive in demonstrating they’re innocuous at all to take them out of the loop concerning cardiovascular disease, they’re a culprit too maybe in a lesser way than added and natural occurring sugars but a culprit after all. What’s happening nowadays is that fats and particularly saturated fat industries around the globe are returning the favor that sugar industry made them in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s decades and are now framing sugar industry alone in the high incidence of CVD worldwide not only in your country, but the whole world. This sir is a full blown war between both foods industries and it will be won by the one that deceive us the best, and makes the best lobby in congresses around the world, and by the one that kills healthy nutrition activists and discredit healthy food authorities and organizations around the world, starting of course in the US. I’d like to add up that Icompletely agree with your claim that sugar industry demonized saturated fats for so many years to deviate the attention from it concerning CVD but come on sat fat is also guilty let’s say in a lesser way but it is. People eat way too much of it every day around the year, year after year don’t expect us to believe that it’s completely innocent, and that it doesn’t cause any damage at all. It’s completely demonstrated that atheromas that clog arteries are made of fats derived of sat& trans fat and some types of cholesterol it’s a scientific fact. obviously it’s propitiated first by excessive sugar that has glycated the vascular endothelium making it rough so that the excessive amounts of sat and trans fat that people here so much love to eat, attach themselves to the arteries and form clogging atheromas causing them heart attacks & strokes. And let’s not even star talking about sugar and it’s part in developing diabetes that´s another chapter in this sad story.
Dayron Rico-We love Natasha”s recipes just the way they are! If you want to make recipes your way, start your own healthy blog and leave us alone.
I very much agree with you, Rose. While Dayron posed the comment in a mostly positive way, I still think it was inappropriate to make such a lengthy negative comment. I love Natasha’s recipes just as they are, and most people who are interested in cooking realize loaded mashed potatoes aren’t necessarily the healthiest as far as fat content, and they will eat these in moderation. For those who like wholesome food, there is nothing wrong with occasionally eating foods that aren’t at the top of the health scale. I’ve been cooking for 50 years and, while we do eat foods with less fat and more spices to bump up the flavor, we also enjoy things like this recipe in moderation. I seriously doubt that most people will sit down and have a huge serving of this, as it’s more of a side dish. This is not a health blog, and by the amount of people who love Natasha’s recipes, I think the majority of her readers appreciate her sharing her expertise with us. If one is concerned with every single recipe being devoid of fats, sugars, or whatever one deems bad for you, please follow sites that suit your preferences and stop trying to be the “food police”.
The best part – the dish may be prepared in advance making it the perfect side for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Winner!
Only a moron would think of making this everyday! Tired of you Calorie countin’, health Nazis complaining about a Christmas or Thanksgiving Dinner. Unnnessary & Mean !
We love make-ahead recipes, especially around the holidays!
Wow, what a totally unnecessary comment. This isn’t a health blog, is it? Natasha has incredible recipes that I look to for entertaining company, holidays and comfort food. If you were looking for a healthy alternative this wasn’t the place. You sound ridiculous and pedantic – get a life, dude!
Don’t make it then.
WOW! You never heard the saying, ” if you cannot say anything nice, then do not say anything at all!!” Very mean of you to attack this young lady!!
Looks like another delicious dish, Natasha)
Question: if i wanna double the recipe, do i use a 9 by 13 baking dish?
Also, to what step can i make ahead the recipe to minimize time before i can serve?
Hi Viktoriya, yes I would use a 9×13 baking dish when doubling. To save time, you can make the mashed potatoes a day ahead. I suggest using our creamy mashed potatoes since they don’t firm up when they are chilled and will freshen up very easily. You can also pre-shred your cheese and pre sautee your bacon and just cover and keep all 3 parts separate in the fridge then assemble and bake before serving. If you are starting out with chilled potatoes, you may need a few extra minutes in the oven and mash them up to make them a little creamier before adding to the casserole.
I appreciate your quick reply, Natashka😀
Tasteful and easy ! Love it !
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for the wonderful review!
Oh my this was so good. I made it and it was gone within 10 mins.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for the wonderful review!
Your recipes remind me my mamas kitchen, she was cooking like you.
Reading your letter I’m starting crying.
We are Jews original from Cernovitz Ucraina/Romania.
I’m so inspired reading your review. Thank you!
Just put my loafed mashed potatoes in the oven. Cant wait till hubby gets home. Wish we’re could upload pictures
I bet your house smells amazing right now!! Feel free to post and tag us on Social media #natashaskitchen @natashasktichen so that we can see your creation!
How many people does this recipe feed?
Hi Kate, the serving size is located at the top of the print-friendly recipe card (towards the bottom of the recipe post). This potato casserole serves 6 as a side dish.
Alla, I hope your hubby enjoyed the dish as did you. Thanks for trying our recipe! <3
This needs to happen at my house very soon!!
I hope you love it!
What size baking dish works for this? I want to use an 8×8 dish but am thinking this recipe might need a 9×13. Help!
Hi, Jerry! An 8×8 will work. Mine was 9×9 and there was room for more potatoes. I hope you enjoy the recipe. 🙂
Always a hit with my family!
That’s so great!! Thank you Mallory!
Oh my, this is a dish my family will devour!
That’s perfect!! I hope you all love it!
big time favorite at our house!
Ours as well! Thank you for the wonderful review Lori!!
Yes Please!! Time to shake up my Thanksgiving mashed potatoes!
Exactly!! I hope you love it!
YES!!!!! Totally trying this, kind of genius. Thank you Natasha & Valentina!!
Our pleasure!! Hope you love it!
You’re so welcome. I hope you LOVE the dish. 🙂
YUM!!!
Thanks Mary! These loaded mashed potatoes sure are YUM! 🙂