Is there anything that isn't delicious with a white sauce? And when you throw ham, potatoes and cheese with it, really, how can you go wrong? This classic escalloped potatoes and ham recipe is a tasty home-cooked meal to fill up on after a busy day.
You could also make it ahead and bake it later.
Below I've added a note to make this gluten-free / grain-free!
Classic Escalloped Potatoes and Ham
Yield 9x13 Pan
Ingredients
- 6 organic potatoes (potatoes are on the “Dirty Dozen” list of produce to not buy conventional because they're highly sprayed with chemical pesticides)
- 1/2 cup whey (Where to get whey)
- 1-2 cups ham broth (or chicken broth) (find pastured meats here)
- Ham pieces, about 1 cup
- 8 ounces butter (pastured butter is best)
- 1/2 finely chopped onion
- About 7 Tablespoons flour (I used Einkorn flour but also sometimes use part sprouted flour) — To make this gluten free/grain free – substitute the flour with 4 Tablespoons sorghum flour and 4 Tablespoons brown rice flour – it will be almost as yummy and likely your family won't know the difference!
- 3 cups cream or milk, or a combination, whatever you have on hand
- Optional: 1/2 to 1 cup shredded cheese (any kind you like) to make it a cheesy dish
- Sea salt, pepper, garlic powder, and other seasonings to your taste
Instructions
The night before, or at least 7 hours ahead, clean, slice, and soak potatoes in a bowl full of filtered water and about a half cup of whey. This takes away of some of the starch in the potatoes. I used my Bosch to slice the potatoes nice and thin – it helped them to cook a lot faster in the oven, and they got crispy-licious. I made a bigger batch and it took *literally* 2 minutes to slice 10 potatoes! I'm going to use this soon to make homemade potato chips again, yum! (Note: if you forget this part and peel your potatoes right before making the recipe, it'll still be good, just more starchy!)
Make the sauce:
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, add the onions and sauté until they're soft and just starting to become golden brown. Add the flour and keep stirring as it cooks for 1-2 minutes. Slowly add in the milk and it will become a wonderful thick sauce. (If you pour it in too quickly it'll be very thin.) Add the cheese if desired and season it up until it tastes really dreamy to you.
Strain and rinse the potatoes, rinse out the bowl, and in this big bowl, stir together the potatoes, ham and sauce. Spoon into a greased 9×13 glass dish.
How you bake this depends… If you want to just put it in the oven and forget about it, put it in at 350* for an hour or longer, depending on how thin you sliced your potatoes and how fast they'll take to cook – check with a fork to make sure they're done through. If you like it browned up really well and crispy in spots like I do, then crank your oven up to 500* and keep a really good eye on it. It'll get brown on top fast, so stay close and you'll need to flip potatoes under or over so nothing burns, but this way it'll have a nice flavorful crispiness and be done in 45 minutes to an hour.
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Annette says
December 28, 2014 at 12:16 PMMy husband loves scalloped ham and potatoes, but my sauce always “breaks” when I make it, so I stay away from making it. At his request, I made this last night with leftover Christmas ham. It was the first time my sauce did not “break”. It was The. Best. scalloped potatoes we have ever had. I didn’t have ham broth, nor did I want to take the time to make it with the leftover bone so I used chicken broth instead. I added a handful of cheddar and some havarti. When the potatoes, ham and sauce were in the dish, I poured about an extra half cup of milk (maybe a bit more) over the top to make sure the potatoes didn’t absorb all the sauce and leave me with a dry dish. It came out saucy and oh so yummy! We’re all doing the happy dance here, so no more staying away from scalloped potatoes.
KitchenKop says
December 28, 2014 at 6:42 PMYay! I’m so happy to hear this! 🙂
Kelly
Jennifer says
October 23, 2012 at 10:59 PMDoes your bone-in ham steak come raw or cooked? I’m just trying to figure out if I need to do anything to pre-cook the ham pieces I cut off my ham bone? Or does it all cook in the oven, so pre-cooking is unnecessary? Can’t wait to make this!
KitchenKop says
October 25, 2012 at 9:15 PMYep, it was already cooked, then it just gets hot in the oven.
Kelly