Best Ever Tater Tot Casserole is a classic comfort food recipe that everyone loves! This casserole is packed full of meat, green beans, corn, soup, and cheese for a totally satisfying dinner!
This post first appeared over at I am Baker, where I am a contributor. Be sure to try out my Chicken Tater Tot Casserole and my Tater Tot Breakfast Casserole too! We also love our Classic Tuna Casserole so much for an easy weeknight dinner.
What is Tater Tot Casserole?
Tater tot casserole is also sometimes known as tater tot hotdish depending on where you live! It's a simple and comforting casserole with a few main components. Typically in these casserole recipes, you will find meat, potatoes or some other kind of starch, along with a combination of vegetables, cheese, and canned soup.
Tater tot casserole has been popular around family dinner tables for years because they are convenient to make using only one pan. They are also a favorite meal because they are very budget friendly! You can feed a crowd with a single 9×13 inch pan of tater tot casserole, or, you can easily get two meals from one casserole for a family of four.
How to Make Tater Tot Casserole:
My tater tot casserole recipe is so simple to make. A lot of times you will see hotdish made by the layering of ingredients with the meat first, then the soup, then the tater tots.
My version varies a bit from the traditional layering. But, I have found after making this casserole for years, that my way makes for the most flavorful casserole with the most accurate cooking time!
I start by cooking my ground beef with seasonings, then draining the grease if necessary. Instead of layering the casserole, then I mix the cooked beef together with two cans of soup, sour cream, the vegetables, and cheese.
Then, spread the beef mixture in the pan, and top with an even layer of tater tots. By mixing everything together, the meat has excellent flavor, and you don’t have to worry about it drying out!
Tater Tot Casserole with Green Beans:
Feel free to use canned or frozen vegetables in this recipe, both work just fine. I typically always use canned green beans and canned corn, because those are my family’s favorites. Tater tot casserole is also great with peas, carrots, broccoli, or whatever veggies your family likes best!
Same goes for the cheese for this recipe. I typically like to use sharp cheddar but have added parmesan as well and it adds great flavor. You can experiment with a mixture of cheeses to make this casserole your own.
How Long to Cook Tater Tot Casserole:
You will want to cook your tater tot casserole at 350 degrees. As tempting as it might be to cook this casserole at a higher temperature, it is best to go a little lower and slower.
Baking at 350 ensures that the casserole will be hot and bubbly, the cheese melted, and the tater tots perfectly light brown and crispy! This will take about 50 minutes total. Next, you will add your extra shredded cheese right on top of the casserole and place it back into the oven for about 5 minutes, just until the cheese is melted.
Enjoy!
~Nichole
Tater Tot Casserole
Ingredients
- 32 Ounce Package Frozen Tater Tots
- 1 Pound Lean Ground Beef
- ½ White onion, Diced
- ½ Teaspoon Garlic Powder
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- ½ Teaspoon Pepper
- 2 Teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce
- ⅓ Cup Sour Cream
- 1 10 Ounce Can Condensed Cheddar Cheese Soup
- 1 10 Ounce Can Cream of Mushroom or Chicken Soup
- 2 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese, Divided
- 1 15.2 Ounce Can Corn, Drained
- 1 14.5 Ounce Can Green Beans, Drained
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large skillet brown the ground beef along with the onion, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce until the beef is no longer pink. Draine grease if necessary.
- In a large bowl mix together the beef mixture with the sour cream, both cans of soup, corn, green beans, and 1 cup of the shredded cheese.
- Spread the beef and soup mixture into the prepared pan. Top with an even layer of tater tots and bake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes, until tater tots are brown and the casserole is bubbling.
- Top the casserole with the remaining shredded cheese and bake for 5 minutes longer until cheese is melted.
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Nutrition
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If you're looking for other easy weeknight dinners give these a try:
We love this! I add a bag of Trader Joe’s Mexican corn instead of canned corn and 2 cans of Mushroom soup. ( Canned Cheese soup is not my thing. !)
pretty good stuff
I added real chopped GARLIC AND ONIONS AND BACON and cooked them all together before adding the ground beef, I used an 85%
Swapped the sour cream for cheddar french onion dip
I found a bag of extra crispy tots and used some mild cheddar. to smother the topping
My household loves it! But I did change it a little. I tried it once w the condensed cheese soup and we did not like it. So we don't do the cheese soup, or any of the vegetables, and I use the cream of mushroom soup. I add more seasoning than recommended to the meat. It is very yummy! We have 3 ppl in our house and we never have any leftovers!
Made this tonight. I substituted Condensed Broccoli &Cheese soup for the Condensed Cheese Soup. Excellent recipe. Very simple and extremely delicious. I will definitely make it again and I highly recommend it!
Tasty! I 1st discovered this yummy casserole when I worked at sunrise preschools and the cook made it for kids. Lol us teachers would fight for leftovers after the kids got their lunch! The only thing I personally didn't care for (just me ) 😀 is the worcestershire Sauce.
I personally like it better without it. I also prebaked my tots for about 14 minutes. Oh, and I used ground chicken breast and it was AWESOME!! This has been a monthly dish receipe in our home for a long time! 😋
Do you put a lid on it when you place in the oven?
I wouldn't. You want the tots to get crispy.
I don't put a lid on this when I put it in the oven. It turns out great.
This recipe is a favorite in our house. My kids love it. I use frozen corn and canned green beans. I have made it with cream of mushroom and cream of chicken depending on what I have in hand. It’s good both ways.
Definitely easy to prepare. Next time I will use a higher quality breakfast sausage for purposes of flavor. The portions held together well when cut. I think I cooked mine too long because it was a little too brown on top and bottom; didn’t look like the photos 😊 I’ll definitely try this recipe again with less baking time.
Subbed the green beans for jalapenos since green beans are my S/o's arch nemesis and it was amaaaazing!
Absolutely delicious! I had to sub Worcestershire for coconut aminos since I was out, but it didn’t hurt the flavor at all.
I make this for camping trips in the Dutch oven. I use half ground pork and half ground beef. It’s a big hit!
Amazing. I added cream cheese in top also. Yummy
If you use frozen vegetables instead of canned do you cook them first or add them frozen?
I was wondering the same thing. I think I'll just add the frozen veggies when I brown the meat with the onion.
Allow frozen vegetables to thaw, drain them if necessary of excess moisture, then add them to the meat mixture.
I use frozen corn and I do not cook it first. I just mix it in. I have not ever done frozen green beans though.
Frozen veggies doesn't hurt the recipe!
Delicious !!!! I used broccoli and cheese soup simply because I didn’t have the cheddar cheese soup. Easy to make new spin on tater tot casserole . Will be trying more of your recipes .
has anyone ever tried this with ground venison?
Yes! That’s all we use in our house! It’s delicious!
Thank you. !
That's all my family eats is venison! It is good!! However, the venison needs to be processed correctly.
Sounds great! Gonna try it out tomorrow.
This is so good and went directly into our biweekly rotation.
Can this be frozen?
I made this recipe for the first time last night and it was delicious! It even pleased my picky little ones. We're vegetarians so we used vegetarian ground, vegetarian Worcestershire sauce and added a can of black beans. The result was perfect. I just thought I'd share that for anyone who may want to make substitutions. Thank you for sharing this simple, delicious recipe. It'll be apart of our regular rotation.
Really good with chopped broccoli instead of the corn. I've made this 3 times now, love it.
Using broccoli sounds delicious. Did you cook the broccoli first?
This recipe is SO delicious!! I used Cream of Mushroom soup, not Cream of Chicken and was glad I did. Other than that I followed the recipe exactly other than just a little extra cheese on top and my family absolutely loved it! We had a little left over for the next day (there are only 3 of us) and it was gone before I got home from work. I will definitely make this again!!