This main course casserole of ground beef, potato tots, and mixed vegetables in a creamy sauce is a hug for your tummy.
Sometimes you need to put on your sweatpants, a comfy sweater, fuzzy socks, and curl up in front of the television with your favorite movie and a plate of Mom’s Hot Dish. If you’re from Minnesota, you know all about hot dish. The rest of us Midwesterners call the same meal “tater tot casserole.” What’s the difference? Honestly, it’s a regional thing, but “hot dish” always is a main course, whereas a casserole can be a main or a side dish, like my Skinny Squash Casserole.
There are hundreds of hot dish recipes, but ground beef seems to be a common protein, and all ingredients are bathed in a savory sauce and often topped with those hard-to-resist Tater Tots. It’s a real belly warmer for a winter supper, but it also can be a gut buster! Although you can make a few swaps to help with the caloric count, make no mistake — this is not low-calorie food!
This vintage recipe is Lillian Helbig’s from a Carondelet United Church of Christ cookbook my mom purchased in the 1970s. Let’s get cooking!
You will need the following ingredients to make Mom’s Hot Dish, which yields 6 servings:
1 pound ground beef
½ package dry onion soup mix
1 (10.5-ounce) can Campbell’s Heart Healthy Cream of Chicken Soup
5 ounces water
1 (12-ounce) package frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
1 (32-ounce) package Tater Tots
3 ounces grated cheddar cheese (optional)
To cut back on fat, swap ground beef for ground turkey, which has 50 grams per pound (there are 90 grams in the 80/20 beef). You won’t sacrifice flavor. If you choose beef, try the leaner 85/15 mix with 15 percent fat.
Follow these directions to make Mom’s Hot Dish
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat and lightly brown the ground beef until the pink is almost gone. Drain excess fat off the ground beef.
In a small bowl, mix the soup and water until combined. Stir thinned soup and dry onion soup mix into the ground beef. Fold in the vegetables.
Spray a 9-by-13-inch casserole with non-stick and transfer beef mixture into the pan.
Line the top of casserole with the frozen Tater Tots in neat rows until the surface is covered. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Remove casserole, add cheese on top of tots, and bake an additional 5 to 7 minutes until cheese has melted. If you're not adding cheese, bake casserole 35 minutes or until tots have browned and casserole is bubbly.
Allow casserole to rest for 5 minutes before serving.
A tip from the kitchen
You may remember from the Skinny Squash Casserole recipe that a 10.5-ounce can of Campbell’s Heart Healthy cream of chicken soup contains 175 calories, 2.5 g total fat and 410 mg sodium. When I compared this prepared product with the homemade cream of chicken substitute, the healthier option of canned soup had fewer calories and fat with almost equal amounts of sodium. Because you’re not making hot dish every week, I’d say use the canned soup and save a little time.
A final word on the hot dish v. casserole debate
Late last summer, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota’s award-winning hot dish recipe went viral and for good reason; it’s delicious! Fun fact, Minnesota is the top turkey-producing state in the country. This led the Today show to go deeper in this culinary question. If you’d like to learn more, check out the story.
You can learn more and have all the hot dish recipes you could want in the cookbook, “The Great Minnesota Hot Dish.”
About the blog
Three Women in the Kitchen is an award-winning food blog offering today’s home cooks comforting, hearty recipes with a personal touch. The website also pays tribute to Deborah’s mother, Katie Reinhardt, and paternal grandmother, Dorothy Reinhardt (the “three women” in the kitchen). Whether you’re an experienced or a novice cook, you’ll find inspiration here to feed your families and warm your heart. Subscribe today so you won’t miss a single delicious detail.
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