Potato Stacks

I love a good scalloped potato. And a potato au gratin. Basically, I love any kind of potato dish! But when I discovered potato stacks, well things changed forever.

First, they’re easy to make. They take less time cooking than in a casserole dish and you can pretty much make them in different ways for different tastes — even in the same dish — because they’re all individual stacks. How cool is that?

This stack is a combination of sweet potatoes and Yukon Gold. (you can also use russet) I found that all sweet potatoes made them, well, too sweet. This combo gives just the right amount of sweet and savory. I look for longer tubular potatoes so they stack easily.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound sweet potatoes
• 1 pound Russet potatoes (or Yukon Gold)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• pepper to taste
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup grated gruyere cheese (or other cheese of your choice — cheddar, swiss, etc)
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp garlic granules
• grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Slice your potatoes about 1/8″ thick. I use my Cuisinart with the 4mm slicing disk but a Mandoline slicer would work or if you prefer you can cut by hand. The thinner the better.

Place butter, cream, salt, pepper, garlic granules and dried thyme in a glass measuring cup and then melt on a low level in 30 second bursts. Check each time — you want everything to melt together but not boil! Stir and set aside.

Place alternating slices of the two potatoes in the muffin tin hole. After every couple layers, sprinkle a little grated cheese.

When you’ve filled each hole about 1/2 way up, spoon about a teaspoon of the cream mixture over the top.

Finish your layers of potatoes and cheese and add the remaining cream mixture (about a teaspoon or two) to the top of each stack. Top with a little grated Parmesan cheese.

Loosely cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes.

Remove foil, sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top of each stack and bake another 10 minutes — or until potatoes are fully cooked and soft and cheese is melted. You can put under the broiler for a minute if you want to crisp up the top.

Let cool for about 5 minutes and then serve.

NOTES: I have made these using a silicone muffin pan as well as the old standard metal one. There are pros and cons to each. I find the silicone so much easier to clean but the metal one can give you a bit more of a crispy edge. If using the metal pan, I do suggest lightly oiling them first.

If you don’t care for sweet potatoes you can make these using all Russet or Yukon Gold. And vice versa!