Smothered Ground Beef & Potato Bake with Homemade Gravy | Family Comfort Food!

Tonight I'm going to show you how to make a delicious, get this, smothered ground beef potato casserole bake. With all of that being said, let's what let's get to cooking. You could decide to cube your potatoes, but for this particular recipe, I think a scallop sliced potatoes would make more sense. Okay. These are about a quarter to a half inch thick. The reason why it's really important to cut all of the potatoes around the same size is simple. We want all of our potatoes to cook at the same rate. We're going to pour up all of them. We're going to add them to hot boiling water and we're going to cook them down for about six to eight minutes. First thing that goes in is some salt. Make sure that water is flavored and we're going to add our potatoes, cover them down for just a bit. Allow them to soften up slightly. Just like you're cooking pasta chiles al dente. It's the same thing for the potatoes. We're going to cook them, but they're still going to remain firm. All right. To our hot cast iron skillet, we're going to add some ground beef. This is about three pounds of ground beef. And of course this is a 80 20. I like to work with the 80 20. Yes. Towards the end, we're going to have to strain off that excess grease, right? But for me, whenever you're dealing with a higher fat content, the meat is going to be so much more moist and juicier. All right. As you can see, the meat is perfectly cooked all the way through. However, we do have some oil that we expected, right? Obviously, since we're using an 80 20. All right. What we're going to do is or at least what I like to do, because this is a heavy pan. Okay. Large size cast iron skillet is after we push all of the meat to the side, we're going to go in with our paper towels and we are going to dab up all of that excess grease. All right. This small amount of oil that we left in the pan, that'd be perfect for our onions. Use any type of onions for this recipe, whether it be Vidalia, white onions, yellow onions. It doesn't really matter. We're going to cook the onions down until they're fragrant and translucent. We're also going to go in with some garlic. Of course, add a good amount of garlic for a nice garlicky flavor. Put the garlic down as well because we're constantly stirring. Even though we're cooking on high heat, the garlic is not going to burn. Once you move it around, it will be good to go. All right. We're going to incorporate both the meat and the onions and garlic together. Get everything perfectly situated. Even though it's only garlic and onions, it smells amazing. We're going to add some smoked paprika for a nice element of flavor. We're also going to add some garlic powder. Add a good amount of garlic powder simply because it's no salt added. Why not? We're going to add some onion powder, small amount of onion powder, considering we added onion powder, or should I say we added onions before? Now here's the thing. Even though we added onions and onion powder, the flavor profile is really different. We're going to go with a good amount of salt and ground black pepper for that extra flavor. And we're going to combine all of the seasonings with the ground meat, of course. Stir it on up. And because this is cooking with Tammy, we want to bring out all of the best flavors. We're going to add some beef bouillon. Let's flavor up that beef. We're also going to add some of my all purpose seasoning. Even though it says chicken, no worries whatsoever. This is good on everything. Definitely all purpose. Make sure it smells good. If it smells good, then definitely it's going to taste good. All right. Once we're done, we're going to turn the stove top off. We're going to grab a medium to large size bowl. We're going to place the meat into the bowl. Once we're done, we're going to set it aside and check this out. This is gorgeous, right? We're going to place this to the side. And in the meanwhile, to the same hot pan, of course, we are really going to turn things up in here. Okay. We're going to add some butter. This is about four tablespoons of butter. A lot of butter to melt down. By this time your potatoes should have been drained and strained and rinsed off in cold water to stop the cooking process. All right, let's add some flour. We're adding all purpose flour. And if you notice, I'm adding a small amount at a time simply because I want to maintain that control. I want to continue stirring in the flour and combining it with the butter. And the reason why I'm doing that is because we're going to create a gravy. Not to mention, I don't want it to be lumpy and clumpy. So that's why it's really important. Unless you have a whisk, then just pour it in really, really slow and take your time and break it down. Once the flour is cooked for about 30 seconds, we are not going to have that floury taste going on in this dish, which is perfect. All right. We're going to add some beef broth. Considering that we are using ground beef, makes more sense to add beef broth. However, if you have a chicken broth in hand, you could definitely use chicken broth as well. Give it a good stir. At this point in time, if there's any bits at the bottom of the pan, the liquid is going to remove or release all of those bits from the bottom. Pinch of salt and ground black pepper. My all purpose chicken seasoning. Let's add some garlic powder, a small amount of onion powder, Worcestershire sauce, of course. Gotta have the Worcestershire. Add a good dash. This is all flavor in this bottle. Okay. You have savory, sour and sweet all in one bottle. So why not? We're going to give it a good mix. At this point in time, we're going to lower the flame and allow the gravy to thicken up. Quick tip. If you want your gravy to have a little bit more color going on, you can add some type of browning sauce. All right. You can add a kitchen bouquet is a good one, or you can add some grace browning sauce, right? And just stir it on in. And that will do the trick. We're going to add our ground beef back to the pan. All right. Make sure the ground beef is smothered in the gravy. Allow it to simmer for about a minute or two. Allow all of the flavors to intertwine. And once you're done, you're going to turn the stove top off. We are going to add some nonstick cooking spray because we don't want our potatoes to stick to the bottom. You know what I mean? We want it to stick to our tummies, not the, not the casserole dish. All right, we're going to go in and we are going to create a single layer of potatoes. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just make sure you spread it out evenly into the pan. We're going to add some of our beautiful smothered ground beef on top. We're going to use the spatula to spread the meat onto the potatoes. The meat had a little time to sit and marinate and it smells so good. Oh man, it smells so good. Off camera, I went ahead and added some fresh thyme to the smothered ground beef as well. And of course, that's just going to help with the element of flavor. Add some more meat. I have some more potatoes. So let's create a last layer. All right, we have just enough final layer of meat. If you've never tried smothered ground beef, you definitely have to try it. This is good. Not only when incorporated with potatoes, but it's absolutely outstanding when you add it to toasted buns as well. It's almost like, I don't want to say sloppy Joe. It has a sloppy element. Yes. The flavor, the flavor profile is so different. Wouldn't be a casserole if you're not going to top it with cheese, right? This is some grated cheeses that I had when we made our delicious mac and cheese recipe. So this is a combination of smoked Gouda, if I remember correctly. Yes. Smoked Gouda, along with mild and sharp cheddar and mozzarella Parmesan cheese. But for this recipe, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese will be perfectly fine or any type of cheese that you have sitting in the refrigerator. Just make sure you grate it up and add it to the top. And that's about it. My loves. This is going to go into our preheated 375 degree oven. That's Fahrenheit of course. And we are going to bake our casserole for about 30 minutes. Our smothered beef potato casserole is finished. This is gorgeous. Now here's the thing. You want to allow it to cool for about 15 minutes before serving. We might not get much of a cheese pull simply because I allowed it to cool down a little bit more. I got caught up doing something else. In fact, I'll be transparent. I got caught up watching a holiday movie. That's what it was. A Hallmark holiday movie. But nevertheless, it's about that time and I can't wait to dig in. Allowing it to set was everything. Check this out. This is gorgeous. This looks really good. All right, let's see. Potatoes and smothered beef. Here we come. This is a winner. This is a winner. Forget about a chicken dinner being a winner. This casserole right here is definitely a winner. I didn't even need it to sit long on my palate for me to taste the goodness in this casserole. This is delicious, my loves. Potatoes are perfectly cooked. Everything is perfectly seasoned. Nothing in this casserole is not complimentary. Everything in this single casserole is complimentary from the potatoes to the ground beef, the way in which it was done to the seasonings that was used. You guys are going to love this. I know you want to make this recipe, so I'm going to leave full recipe details in the description bar underneath the video because I keep getting a lot of questions. Where is the recipe? Where is the recipe? The recipe is simply under the video. All you have to do is click where it says more. Once you click more, there's going to be a dropdown box. It's going to open up and it's going to display everything that's in this recipe and all the other recipes that Cooking With Tammy creates. Nevertheless, I'm out of here, my loves. I'll definitely catch you guys in another video and I will keep these delicious recipes coming. Talk to you later. Bye guys.