These scalloped potatoes for one are a shortcut version of one of my favorite comfort foods! Layers of bubbly cheddar cheese, ham, and pre-cooked potatoes in a perfect, quick-cooking, portion-controlled serving.
Looking for more Single-Serving Recipes? Scroll through the Recipes for One archive or check out my Quick Macaroni and Cheese for One , Chicken Noodle Soup for One , and Fettuccine Alfredo for One !
How was your holiday weekend? Did you take a vacation? Eat lots of good food? Spend time with family? Mine was fantastic. I celebrated my birthday, saw Finding Dory (like the grown up that I am), and did the whole family BBQ thing. It was great.
The start of a new month means it’s time for a new monthly recipe theme, and since July is my birthday month, this month’s theme is very loose and very dear to my heart: my favorite recipes!
Every Tuesday in July, I’ll be posting the recipe for one of my very favorite dishes, and first up is a single-serving version of one of my childhood favorites, Shortcut Scalloped Potatoes for One!
The full-size version of this was much-loved in my house growing up and honestly, we didn’t even have a recipe for it. It was just cut a ton of potatoes, shred a mountain of cheese, throw some ham and butter in there, and pour milk or cream over the entire thing.
It’s literally the greatest comfort food known to man. And I haven’t made it in two years.
It’s so decadent and delicious that when I make it I always eat waaaaaaaaaay too much of it and want to die afterwards, so I limit my exposure. Today, in order to be able to eat one of my favorite meals more than a couple times a decade, I built in some portion control and shrunk it down.
How cute is that!? This is a single-serving version of scalloped potatoes. It’s quick and easy to make, and while still nowhere near healthy (all those beautiful layers of potatoes, ham, and cheese…), it confines your indulgence to a single meal, so you won’t go back for seconds and thirds, and pick at it for the rest of the night, and eat if for breakfast the next morning…
But if you want to make this for a crowd, it scales up with no changes except the size of the cooking dishes.
What makes this dish a shortcut version is that where most scalloped potato recipes have you pop raw potatoes right in to the oven, for this recipe, you cook the potatoes almost completely before assembling and baking.
That means that you only need to bake it until your cheese is nice and melty. So you get to eat in about a quarter of the time.
My mom started making it that way when we were kids and involved in a million-and-one activities and expecting everyone to wait an hour for a casserole to bake was just unthinkable.
As an adult, I’m all for long, slow baking projects, but if it’s just serving me, no thanks. I’ll take the shortcut!
I made these scalloped potatoes for one in one of these super adorable 12-ounce stoneware ramekins (they come in a set of four, I just got them, I’m obsessed with how cute they are), but you could use a Pyrex container, an oven-safe bowl, or even an large oven-safe mug.
More Easy Potato Recipes
- Ham and Potato Soup
- Sheet Pan Sausage and Veggies
- Cheese Fries
- Baked Potatoes With Broccoli and Cheese Sauce
Ingredients
- ▢ Oven-safe 12-ounce (1 1/2 cup) dish
Scalloped Potatoes
- ▢ 1 medium red potato sliced 1/8-inch*
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 1 oz) sharp cheddar cheese
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 1.5 oz) cooked ham
- ▢ 1/2 tablespoon ( 7 g) butter diced
- ▢ 2 tablespoons milk half-and-half, or heavy cream
- ▢ Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350° F.
- In a medium saucepan, cover potatoes with cold water and salt the water generously. Bring to a low boil and continue to boil for 3 to 5 minutes, until potatoes are just fork tender. (They won’t get much more cooking after this, so pull them when the texture seems good to you. And if you accidentally overcook your potatoes, don’t worry too much. They will be a little smushy, but will still taste delicious.)
- Drain potatoes and layer potato slices, cheese, ham, and butter pieces in your baking dish, sprinkling a bit of salt and pepper over each set of layers, and finish with a final layer of cheese and ham. Pour milk or cream over the top.
- Place dish on a cookie sheet in the oven to catch drips and bake for 10 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly.
- Allow to cool for 5 minutes and enjoy!!
Notes
A look back at my June BBQ-themed posts plus a round up of five more fantastic menus. There is something here for everyone!
Our barbecue-themed month on Baking Mischief has come and gone. Did you do much June BBQing? I actually didn’t do a ton, but summer has just begun. Who knows what July and August will bring! Since this month’s theme was a barbecue menu, we cooked through an entire menu over the course of the month, starting with Strawberry Limeades and ending with gooey S’mores Cupcakes.
Drink: Strawberry Limeade Mix Side: Loaded Baked Potato Salad with Yogurt Main: Basil and Garlic Steak Marinade Dessert: Gooey Chocolate S’mores Cupcakes
And as I do at the end of every monthly series, I rounded up some more recipes from some of my favorite bloggers. This time I assembled them into themed menus and I had so much fun putting them together!
There is a beverage, a side/appetizer, a main dish, and a dessert for each, and the themes range from kid-friendly to vegan, so there should be something here for everyone. Happy barbecuing!
Kid Friendly
Magical color-changing drinks, bacon-stuffed beans, a patriotic tart, and PIZZA! This is the BBQ of my inner child’s dreams.
Drink: Color changing Purple and Pink Lemonade Slushies from The Flavor Bender Side: BBQ Baked Beans from Southern Kissed Main: Grilled Pizza Recipe from Melanie Cooks Dessert: Red, White and Blueberry Tart from Fox and Briar
South of the Border
A little culinary trip south of the border is just what the doctor ordered…
Drink: Grilled Pineapple Jalapeno Margarita from Platings & Pairings Side: Roasted Corn, Black Bean and Ancient Grains Salad from Making Healthy Choices Main: Carne Asada Borracha from Diversivore Dessert: Kahlua Tres Leches Cupcakes
The Unexpected
Sometimes BBQ means steak and potatoes. Sometimes it’s basil in your lemonade, beets in your eggs, and spicy cantaloupe.
Drink: Blueberry Basil (Bourbon) Lemonade from Bunsen Burner Bakery Side: Beet-Dyed Mustard Ranch Deviled Eggs from A Side of Sweet Main: Macanese Pork Chop Bun (猪扒包) from Omnivore’s Cookbook Dessert: Sweet + Spicy Grilled Cantaloupe from Luci’s Morsels
On the Lighter Side
Just because it’s BBQ doesn’t mean it has to be heavy and calorie-laden!
Drink: Agua de Jamaica from Green Healthy Cooking Side: Garden Macaroni Salad from Healthy Seasonal Recipes Main: Chicken Kabob Salad with Peanut Lime Dressing from Salt & Lavender Dessert: Cinnamon Caramel Nectarines from The Tofu Diaries
Vegan
Who needs meat when you can make meatless look so good!
Drink: Lemon Infused Water from Green Healthy Cooking Side: Vegan German Noodle Salad from Elephantastic Vegan Main: Vegan Falafel Burger with Tahini Sauce from Sweet Potato Fries from Happy Kitchen.Rocks Dessert: Easy Vegan & Gluten-Free Peach Crisp from Eating by Elaine
Put leftover crepes to good use and turn them into crepe cones! Perfect for a sunny summer day, these cones are stuffed with strawberry ice cream, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream, and drizzled with a quick and easy Nutella sauce.
On Tuesday, I teased that something fun was coming up today and here we are: It’s #ToonFood day! A few of my fellow nerdy bloggers and I teamed up, and we are posting cartoon-themed posts today across all of our sites. You should click over and check out their recipes right now… I’ll wait.
Rick and Morty Cinnamon Toast Squanch
Futurama Slurm
South Park Chocolate Salty Balls
Adventure Time Bacon Pancakes
Since I just did a Bob’s Burger’s recipe ( Bacon Dutch Apple Baby for Two , you can’t even taste the baby ), I thought I’d pick something from non-western animation for today’s post, so I made Fruits Basket Crepe Cones!
I was a little too old for the Saturday morning anime boom of the 2000’s, so I never got into Pokemon or Sailor Moon , but when I was in Jr. High, my dad, out of the blue, brought home the complete series of Fruits Basket .
I’m not sure if he was trying to get me and my sisters in touch with our Japanese roots or if one of his comic dealer buddies just gave him a really good deal on the set, but the why doesn’t matter. I was hooked. I watched the show a million and one times that summer, and it still holds a special place in my heart.
If you’ve never seen it, Fruits Basket* is a very charming anime about a high school girl who comes to live with a wealthy family under a mysterious curse that makes them turn into animals of the Chinese zodiac when they are hugged by a member of the opposite sex.
And yes, it’s just as delightfully silly as it sounds.
During one episode late in the series, some of the characters buy crepe cones from a food truck. I was so intrigued by the idea of them when I first watched the show and have been wanting to the dessert a try for ages. And since I just recently did a Crepes for Two post , this challenge seemed like kismet.
How are they? They are everything I hoped they would be! The lightly sweet crepes pair perfectly with the sweet summer strawberries and ice cream. And they hold up surprisingly well to being stuffed.
I was worried regular breakfast crepes would tear under the weight of all the fillings, but they’re well up to the task of containing all the drips and dribbles (somehow without becoming soggy!) that come with ice cream in summer. They even kept my hands clean as my ice cream slowly turned into soup over the course of the photo shoot.
I foresee many a flavor crepe cone in my future, but I made this first batch with what I happened to have around, strawberries, whipped cream, Nutella, and strawberry ice cream. It’s a real winner of a combo, if I do say so myself.
If you happen to have a crepe or two left over from breakfast, I highly recommend turning them into your dessert!
More Nerdy Recipes
- Hannibal’s Lomo Saltado
- Game of Thrones Frey Pie
- The Good Place Maple Butter Scones
- Happy Endings Beef Ribs
Ingredients
- ▢ 1 tablespoon milk or cream
- ▢ 2 tablespoons Nutella
Crepes and Fillings
- ▢ 2 8-inch crepes
- ▢ 2 small scoops strawberry ice cream
- ▢ 1/4 cup thinly sliced strawberries
- ▢ 1/2 cup whipped cream
Instructions
Make the Nutella Sauce
- In a small microwave-safe bowl, microwave milk for 20 to 30 seconds until steaming hot. Stir in Nutella and continue stirring until Nutella is thin enough to drizzle.
Assemble
- Spread whipped cream over 1/4 of your crepe. Add strawberry slices over the whipped cream, stopping at least an inch from the center of the crepe.
- Drizzle 1/4 of the Nutella mixture over them.
- Add one scoop of ice cream over your strawberries, near the edge of your crepe.
- Fold crepe in half, covering your ice cream and strawberries. Starting from the ice cream side, roll your crepe into a cone.
- Drizzle another quarter of the Nutella mixture over the top.
- Repeat with the second crepe and eat!
Shortcut Scalloped Potatoes for One
Ingredients
- Oven-safe 12-ounce (1 1/2 cup) dish
Scalloped Potatoes
- 1 medium red potato sliced 1/8-inch*
- 1/4 cup ( 1 oz) sharp cheddar cheese
- 1/4 cup ( 1.5 oz) cooked ham
- 1/2 tablespoon ( 7 g) butter diced
- 2 tablespoons milk half-and-half, or heavy cream
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350° F.
- In a medium saucepan, cover potatoes with cold water and salt the water generously. Bring to a low boil and continue to boil for 3 to 5 minutes, until potatoes are just fork tender. (They won’t get much more cooking after this, so pull them when the texture seems good to you. And if you accidentally overcook your potatoes, don’t worry too much. They will be a little smushy, but will still taste delicious.)
- Drain potatoes and layer potato slices, cheese, ham, and butter pieces in your baking dish, sprinkling a bit of salt and pepper over each set of layers, and finish with a final layer of cheese and ham. Pour milk or cream over the top.
- Place dish on a cookie sheet in the oven to catch drips and bake for 10 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly.
- Allow to cool for 5 minutes and enjoy!!
