I made my own Tater Tot® casserole after looking through several recipes. It’s a favorite of mine! Add lettuce and sour cream as garnishes.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 45 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 1 9×13-inch casserole |
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons vegetable oil, or as needed
- 1 (15.25 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
- 1 (4.5 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
- 1 cup diced green bell pepper
- ½ cup mild salsa
- ½ large tomato, diced
- 3 tablespoons mild nacho cheese sauce
- 1 pound ground beef
- ¼ cup mild taco sauce
- 1 (16 ounce) package frozen bite-sized potato nuggets (such as Tater Tots®)
- 1 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Grease a 9×13-inch casserole dish.
- Mix corn, mushrooms, green bell pepper, salsa, tomato, and nacho cheese sauce together in a bowl. Layer mixture over the bottom of the prepared dish. Mix ground beef and taco sauce together in a separate bowl; add to the corn mixture in the dish and stir together. Layer potato puffs on top of casserole. Top with shredded Mexican cheese blend.
- Bake in the preheated oven until beef is no longer pink, about 25 minutes.
- Set oven rack about 6 inches from the heat source and preheat the oven’s broiler. Broil casserole until top is golden brown, about 5 minutes.
- Do not use creamed corn in this recipe.
- Any Cheddar or mozzarella cheese blend will do.
- You can adjust the heat of the dish by adding in jalapeno peppers, or using a hot salsa and/or nacho cheese sauce.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 353 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 29 g |
| Cholesterol | 52 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 17 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 808 mg |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Fat | 21 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I modified the recipe a little, brown the ground beef, added chopped onions, minced garlic, chopped fresh jalapeño, used creamed cheddar soup and milk, can of rinsed black beans, and extra cheese on top.
Excellent casserole I followed the advice and added more cheese 3 cups was about right should have added some hot peppers but not everyone in my home enjoys them will make again
I loved the idea of this but it was just okay. I did make a couple of changes. I used fresh mushrooms instead of can because I had them and fresh is always better. My other change was with the ground beef. I was not comfortable putting it in the casserole raw. I bought lean beef but even it releases way too much grease. Also by cooking it first you are able to crumble it into smaller more even pieces. I would add some taco seasoning to the meat if I were to make this again. It needed it. It might have worked raw but in my opinion you really need to cook the beef first and then drain it. On that note, the bell peppers stayed crunchy. They probably would have gotten more done if sitting in a pool of grease but that isn’t the way to go. Lastly, 1 cup of cheese was not nearly enough. I ended up using 2 cups and that still wasn’t enough to get that nice brown bubbly finish on top like you want. This recipe has potential but needs some tweaking.