Instapot Cheesy Sausage & Tot Casserole
Sometimes I create my own recipes, and other times I steal someone else’s and tweak it. Why do the heavy lifting if someone has already perfected the heavy lifting for you? This recipe is one such case.
One typical Saturday night, a Saturday night that wasn’t a date night, I was perusing Pinterest…or as Matthew so endearingly calls it, internet hoarding…when I came across this recipe.
As I spent some of my formative years (high school) in potato country, any recipe that is full of cheese and potatoes instantly calls to me. I know, I know…I’m a nutritionist who is working toward her dietetic degree…but a heart wants what a heart wants.
Missy’s recipe is perfect for the slow cooker, but I wanted to use my instapot instead. Full disclosure, I planned on using the slow cooker setting on my instapot, but it cooked faster than I anticipated. It still turned out EXTREMELY yummy, but had I left it alone on the slow cooker setting and not been home to occasionally stir the contents, the bottom would’ve burned.
That being said, here is how I tweaked Missy’s recipe…
Instapot Cheesy Sausage & Tot Casserole
Equipment
- instapot
Ingredients
- 32 oz bag of frozen hashbrowns cubed, not shredded
- 14 oz kielbasa cut into small cubes
- 1 small onion diced
- 2 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 10.5 oz cream of chicken soup
- 1 cup milk
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 tsp paprika
- fresh chives
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Here is where I changed things up, heat the instapot on the saute setting and add in the butter. Once melted add in the diced onion. Saute until the onion begins to caramelize. Turn the saute setting off and add in the potatoes and sausage. Stir until combined; doing this not only combines the ingredients but it helps cool off the instapot so it won’t scorch the milk and cream of chicken soup. Mix together the milk, cream of chicken/mushroom soup, paprika, and salt and pepper. Have a light hand when it comes to salting, the kielbasa has salt in it as well as the cheese. It would be very easy to over-salt this recipe. Pour the liquid mixture over the sausage and potatoes. Add in the cheese and stir to combine. Place the instapot on the slow cooker setting (you could easily pressure cook this recipe, but I wanted to be able to stir the contents occasionally, which you can’t do while the pot is pressurized). Cook for 2 hours, stirring the contents every 30 minutes or so so the bottom doesn’t become burned. Serve immediately and garnish with freshly chopped chives if desired.
Nutrition
As Missy said, this could easily be served for any meal…bottom line is this is pure comfort food at it’s finest. Personally I would make this recipe for a pot luck or a rainy day.
Hope y’all have an amazing week!
