Ree Drummond's CHEESY Twice-Baked Potato Casserole | The Pioneer Woman | Food Network

The guys are having a big morning of working cattle over on Tim's ranch today and I'm making them a rib-stickin' ranch-style lunch. They are gonna be hungry when they're finished. To go with the ribs, I'm making twice-baked potato casserole. It's pretty much everything that's wonderful about twice-baked potatoes, but in casserole form. Now of course, twice-baked potatoes in any form have to have bacon, so I fried up a bunch and I just need to chop it up. You know, you can use store-bought bacon bits for twice-baked potatoes, but I think nothing is like bacon you fry yourself, particularly when you're cooking for cowboys. They detect things like this. They might run me out of town if they find out I used artificial bacon pieces. Okay, I got the bacon all chopped. I'll let that sit for a sec. Now I've got to add a lot of butter to this casserole because I baked a lot of potatoes, so I've got four sticks of softened butter. I want it to be really, really soft. Then when the warm potato mixture goes in, it melts really quickly. Okay, and four. Then a whole container of sour cream. Everyone likes sour cream with potatoes, let's face it. Okay, now for the potatoes. I've got 16 big baking potatoes, and I rubbed them in a little bit of vegetable oil and then baked them at 400 for about an hour. They're nice and tender, very hot, so I'll just cut it in half. Ooh, nice and hot. And I'll use a little towel so it won't be too hot in my hands, and I like to use just a big tablespoon to slowly scrape the insides out. The great thing is this mixture is not going back into the shell, so I can be as clumsy as I want, tear up the shells a little if I need to. I just want to get as much potato out as possible, and if a little skin goes in there, no big deal at all. It'll just make it extra flavorful. Okay, the second half. This is going to take me a little while. I'm making a lot of potatoes, but I've got a lot of hungry mouths to feed. Okay, that's the last potato scooped, and I've got nice little flecks of potato skin all throughout. So now I'll season all of this. It's a lot of potato. So it needs a good amount of salt, and of course plenty of black pepper, and then I also like to add some seasoned salt. It just adds a few different flavors, a little bit of extra saltiness. All right, that looks great. Now I'll throw in all of this delicious bacon. I may or may not have sneaked a piece of bacon while it was frying. I'm not admitting anything, I'm just saying it's a green onion. I always put green onions in my twice-baked potatoes. It just adds a great, sharp flavor. All of this food I'm cooking today is really, really portable, and it holds well. Everything has to be able to make it from the kitchen to the pins. Okay, now the green onions go in. I also grated a lot of cheese, a couple of cups of cheddar jack, and I'll sprinkle that over the top. And then I definitely need some milk in here so that everything will mix together well. So I'll just pour in a couple of cups of milk. All right, now I just need to break out my muscles. I've got a potato masher, and I'll just go right in and smush all this together. This takes a little while. There are a lot of ingredients in here. The potatoes don't have to be completely smooth, but I don't want there to be any huge chunks. So I'll just keep on mashing until my heart tells me it's done. I follow my heart in the kitchen. I'll tell you, those cowboys think they work hard. They have no idea what I go through in this kitchen. Okay, looks perfect. Get the extra off. Now I'm gonna put all of this into a big foil container. I think it'll all fit. Whenever I'm making twice-baked potatoes for a crowd, it can get a little much to refill the skins after the mixture is done. This is the perfect solution. Just put it into a big pan, warm it up, and it's ready to serve. This looks amazing. There is not a cowboy on the ranch or a kid on the ranch that won't go crazy for this. Okay, now I'll just smooth out the surface. It doesn't have to be perfect. This is a great dish to make if you're having a big party because you can actually make it the day ahead and pop it in the oven when you're ready. I wasn't that organized. I did it the same day. Okay, now I'm gonna sprinkle more cheese over the top. The potato mixture has plenty inside that I like for the top to have a nice layer of melted cheese. This is cheddar jack, but you can use all cheddar, all jack, or you can do pepper jack. That's always delicious, too. Okay, now this just needs to go back into the oven for about 30 minutes until it's warmed through. I'm making roasted green beans with bacon as a side dish. Everyone on the ranch loves green beans, and roasted in the oven with bacon, they are out of this world. Now, I've got four pounds of fresh green beans, and I just cut the tops and tails right off, and I'm just getting them onto baking sheets. Now, I'm gonna chop up some onion. There is nothing better than onion and bacon together. I love the smell of the two cooking together. So, I'm just gonna chop up one whole onion. I don't want it to be too, too fine because I don't want the little pieces to burn in the oven. Usually, when I make green beans, I either sauté them or steam them, but I really love to roast them because they get these nice dark places all over, gives them great flavor, and it's really easy just to throw these in the oven. Okay, now I'll just sprinkle onion right over each pan. I pretty much love any roasted vegetable. The flavor is just out of this world. Now, I'll drizzle on just a little bit of olive oil. The bacon is going to give off plenty of grease, but I just want to get the green beans a little bit coated in oil, and then plenty of salt and pepper. Okay, now I have a whole bunch of thin bacon. I diced it really, really fine. I didn't want there to be big rubbery pieces of bacon after the green beans were roasted, so dicing them fine takes care of that. Pretty much everything that has bacon in it, the cowboys love. I've got bacon in the twice-baked potato casserole, bacon in the green beans. It's an automatic no-brainer. One great thing about this dish is how quick it is. It took no time at all for me to throw this together. Okay, now I'm just going to get these in the oven. The green beans are going to roast in a 425-degree oven for about 18 to 20 minutes. All right, now when everything's ready, I'm going to slice up the ribs, pack everything up, and deliver lunch. Things are looking good. Well, the whole crew's been over at Tim's Ranch all morning. They've been working cattle, and after all this hard work, they are going to be hungry, so I'm going to deliver them a big lunch. I've got ribs, delicious potatoes, gorgeous green beans, and to go with them, I made some slow-roasted jalapeno corn. I put it in the oven earlier this morning. I started with 36 cobs of corn, and I just sliced the kernels right off into a roasting pan. Then I added butter, cream, and a couple of thinly sliced jalapenos that have the seeds and membranes removed. After that, I just threw in some minced garlic, paprika, salt, and pepper. Then I stirred it together, covered the pan, and put it into a 275-degree oven for an hour and a half to two hours. I just love recipes that do their thing slowly and gently and don't require a lot of fuss or intervention. My family loves corn too, so it's a bonus. All right, just about there. Hey honey, you need some help? Sure, I'll take some help. What's this? Potatoes. Really hot, really heavy. Put it on the side. That's dessert. Start dishing some out. Hi Missy, how are you? Cheesy twice-baked potato casserole. Here are the ribs. Do you guys work up an appetite? You want some potatoes? Get the good stuff.