For the Apple Day 2010 potluck, I decided to make something that we had ingredients for, and that would feed quite a few people, and that I could make ahead or in the crock pot. So that meant crock pot scalloped potatoes. I found the original recipe at About.com: Southern Food and adjusted it based on what I have here, as well as what I’ve learned from America’s Test Kitchen.
Ingredients:
- 1 stick butter
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- salt & pepper to taste
- 2 cups whole milk
- 2-3 cups shredded cheese – a combination of monterey jack, cheddar and parmesan is delicious
- 2-3 tablespoons dry sherry
- 8-10 medium potatoes, scrubbed and thinly sliced
Preparation:
- Turn potatoes into a buttered slow cooker. Add some more dabs of butter, in case you didn’t butter it well enough. Toss to coat potato slices with the melting butter.
- Melt 4 more tablespoons butter in a heavy saucepan over medium low heat. Decide to throw the rest of the stick of butter in with the potatoes, because you can’t ever have too much butter. (Don’t tell your arteries.)
- Stir in flour, salt and pepper and cook for a few minutes.
- Whisk in milk gradually until no lumps remain. DO NOT get impatient whisking milk and decide you’ll just add the rest of it in right now. You will have to whisk extra hard to get rid of the lumps, and you might have a panicky feeling that you’ve ruined Apple Day.
- Heat and stir until bubbly and thickened. Stir in cheese to melt.
- Add the rest of the bottle of sherry you’ve been cooking with recently, because sherry is good in cheese sauce. If you have most of the sherry bottle left still, you should maybe limit the amount you add to your sauce. You decide.
- Pour cheese sauce over sliced potatoes.
- Cover and cook on low 5 to 7 hours. Except you decided on this recipe less than 5 hours before the meal, and you have an hour’s drive to get there. So turn it up to high, then wrap the crock pot with towels and coats to transport it to the potluck location. Once there, vacillate between low and high, trying to make sure the potatoes soften without the cheese sauce burning. Decide when it’s dinner time that “al dente” is good enough. Serve.
The Verdict:
Do I have to tell you? The sauce was cheesy and delicious. The potatoes were fine. I think I would really have loved this recipe if I’d had the entire cooking time available to me. However, it was lacking in browned, slightly crunchy bits of cheese sauce. I did scrape some delicious browned bits off the side of the crock when I went back for seconds, but I think that I may prefer oven-baked scalloped potatoes in general. Of course, you could pour your crock into an oven safe dish for the last 20 minutes of cooking or so, to encourage some browning action. But that would involve an extra dish to clean. And why wouldn’t you just make this oven version of the scalloped potatoes then?
In the end, I think this was a great choice for Apple Day, since it met the requirements of cooking while we were pressing cider and being tasty. I will likely create a cheesy oven potato recipe that gets to live in the Recipe Box, but this version has to stay in What’s for Dinner? since it’s got some issues (no crispy crust, for example. What’s up with that?).
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I was there at Apple Day, where I ate these and then I ate some more. They were fan-frikkin’-tastic.
Thanks, Chris! I’m glad you enjoyed them. You _were_ the inspiration for using all three cheeses, after all.
Thank you for the crockpot scalloped potatoes recipe without the canned soup. I will use this recipe for Christmas to serve with Prime Rib. I’m sure it will be great!
I’m so glad you’re going to use it – I really thought they were delicious. If you want to send some leftover Prime Rib, I would be happy to sample it. You know, as research into what goes well with my crockpot scalloped potato recipe. I’m all about the research.
Thank you, thank you for this recipe. Nearly ever single one I’ve come across calls for canned cream soup(blech!). My assigned dish for Easter dinner tomorrow was scalloped potatoes. However, we live an hour from where we’re going and we’ll be at church for the couple hours before lunch so the crockpot is my only viable solution. I may be the only one going into church with a crockpot and stealing an available electrical outlet, but that’s okay. :p
Courtney,
Thank you so much for commenting! I am so glad this recipe is helpful to you! When I came up with it, I was in a similar situation (although I plugged the crock pot into a socket in my host’s kitchen, and not at church, but… still, similar). It’s possible that I’ll have the same plan as you for Easter dinner. We’re heading to the in-law’s, and I still haven’t decided what to make. Since it’s an afternoon dinner, I still have a bit of time. Of course, they live almost an hour away, so these are the times that I wish for a crock pot that plugs into the car socket.
Hi, I love the ingredients of your recipe and can’t wait to try it. Can you tell how many people this might feed?
It makes a hearty side for about 10 – enjoy!
Hey –
Thanks for this great recipe! I really don’t want a crock pot recipe involving cream of anything soup. My oven will be pretty busy tomorrow, so I’m going to try to get these done in the crock pot just to make things easier. My crock pot has a crockery insert, so I plan to just yank that out and put it in the oven to broil up for a few minutes after the ham is done…I’ll let you know how it turns out.
My brother made these for Easter dinner and they were delicious. He substituted Gouda for the Monterrey Jack, used 2% milk and left out the Cooking Sherry. His had the brown crispy bits on the sides of his crock pot so maybe it is your choice of cheese? I am going to try it in my crock pot since I have one that has the 4-6-8-10 hour increments for cooking and can really slow cook it.
He had the crock insert and so does mine. That does leave the option of putting it into the oven for a “few” minutes browning time.
But only if I am at home and not having to cart this to a potluck. But I do love the fact that I now have another cheesy potato recipe for my four guys and little ole me.