TOTS FOR DAYZ. Call it a chicken pot casserole or a tater tot hotdish; I don’t mind either way. This is what real food is, love in a casserole dish. It begins with your typical chicken pot pie ingredients (minus the actual pie crust, obvi). Then we’ll add mushrooms and seasonings, top it with shredded cheddar cheese, and before you know it, you have a beast of a different nature. I’d show no displeasure to the traditional pot pie. But there’s also a general consensus – everything is a better when tater tots are involved. That’s saying something when it comes from a self-proclaimed bread lover. To be honest, I had my doubts I’d be able to get this hotdish recipe over to you before the weekend. Over the last week, we encountered several unexpected issues that caused the site to go down. Even as I was putting this tater tot casserole together on Wednesday, I was praying the site would get it’s act together quickly so that all of our weekend plans would involve a casserole dish full of this stuff. Start by melting the butter, let it get to the point where it begins to crackle and pop, then add the mushrooms. Saute those them so they develop a little color. Then we’ll add the celery. I know what you’re thinking, where are the onions and carrots? I’m using crinkle cut carrots and pearl onions in this recipe to give it a heartier texture so we’ll add those in later. And though a traditional tater tot hotdish has ground beef and veggies, I decided to give it a modern makeover and combine the most traditional comfort food with tater tots. I mean a tater tot casserole is food for children and grown-ups alike. It’s man food; it’s comfort food, and I don’t think a single person can complain about it. As with most of my recipes, my tater tot hotdish contains precisely zero cans of condensed this or that. It’s also great when there’s just two of you and you cooked a whole roasted chicken on Friday and need to use up the leftovers somewhere. Or on Thanksgiving when you’ve got all those odds and end meat pieces left – MAKE TURKEY POT CASSEROLE. A bit of good news for those that hate cleaning pots and pans. If you’ve got a 4-quart dutch oven (or any oven-safe pot, really), you can make this a one pot recipe. Me? I could’ve easily baked this in a dutch oven, but that would mean the ratio of tater tots to casserole base would be what any sensible adult would have. Honestly, I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life. So if you’re like me, don’t come home with a single bag of tots, it’s just not enough. I learned this the hard way and ended up making a second trip to the store. Priorities, you know? Clearly, I’ve got mine all sorted out.
Then we’ll sprinkle in some flour, an all-purpose seasoning blend and this is optional, a bit of garlic powder. The all-purpose seasoning blend I used it the one from Trader Joe’s, it’s called the 21 seasoning salute. I love that stuff! It’s salt-free, and it’s the one I use in my chicken wild rice soup. Mrs. Dash (affiliate link) also makes one that you can easily find in most grocery stores. Once that’s done we’ll stream in the milk and broth and let it all thicken. Stir in the pearl onions, crinkle cut carrots, cooked shredded chicken (or turkey, if you’ve got Thanksgiving leftovers!!), and peas. Top it with shredded cheese and the tater tots. The ones I used for my tater tot hotdish are the roasted garlic and black pepper ones from Alexia. This is not a sponsored post. Just a friendly suggestion from one garlic lover to another.
SaveSave SaveSaveSaveSave SaveSaveSaveSave And there you have it! When you pull the casserole dish out of the oven and serve yourself a spoonful, make sure you dig all the way to the bottom and get a little bit of everything. That first bite has perfectly tender veggies, a creamy, buttery sauce, and lightly golden and crispy tots. True midwesterners, serve these with ketchup. Midwesterners transplanted in the south: douse this in hot sauce! Seriously, I know how weird it sounds, but oh boy it’s good! A simple chicken pot tater tot hotdish loaded with chicken, veggies, a creamy sauce, cheese, and tater tots. That covers all my major food groups. SaveSave SaveSave
The seasoning I use is the 21 seasoning salute from trader joes which is almost the same thing as the Mrs. Dash’s.If you decide to bake this off in your dutch oven, you’ll need only 1 bag of tater tots. If you decide to bake this in a casserole dish, you’ll need 1 1/2 bags of tater tots.
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