A recipe for good old fashioned pure and creamy scalloped potatoes. No cheese, no canned soups, just a simple list of ingredients let the potatoes shine with flavor for irresistible pure deliciousness.
Looking for another popular holiday-worthy side dish that will feed that hungry family? Don’t miss this recipe for Flemings Steakhouse Mac and Cheese.
Sometimes you just have to go on faith, that when it comes to making perfect Scalloped Potatoes, less is more. This is a recipe for scalloped potatoes with no cheese or no canned soups. And it’s also a gluten free scalloped potato recipe if you need it to be.
I’m not sure when I fell into the habit of making a glorified pan of sliced potatoes that included a cream of this, and a cream of that canned soup, and more than needed shredded cheese. And I called them scalloped potatoes. Which in fact, it was a glorified potato casserole that I regret calling scalloped potatoes.
Culinary school taught us how to cook with a more pure set of mind, using quality ingredients for optimum flavor.
Taking a cue from the French, and their Potatoes Dauphinoise, all you need for a perfect pan of scalloped potatoes is some cream, butter and a few seasonings.
Thin sliced potatoes and onions simmered in a cream sauce with a little sprinkle of paprika for color…bingo. It’s perfect, a classic, its creamy, it’s decadent and a guaranteed crowd pleaser.
Let’s take a look:
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Potatoes: Use a waxy potato such as Yukon Gold or Red-skinned potatoes
- Heavy Whipping Cream
- Whole Milk
- Flour: To make these a gluten free scalloped potato recipe use Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 baking flour. It works very well as a substitute for all-purpose flour with no adjustments to the recipe. You can also use all-purpose flour.
- Butter
- Seasonings: Paprika, Kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, garlic and dried or fresh thyme.
Step by Step Instructions
- Step 1: Peel the potatoes and onions and slice them ⅛″ thick. The easiest way to do this is to use a mandolin. To slice the onions, remove the peel, cut one end off the onion and then use the cut side to slice it on the mandolin. Peel the potatoes and slice.
- Step 2: Cook The Onions and Garlic: Using a 6-quart Dutch oven, melt butter over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for about 7 minutes or until soft and starting to change color. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant. About 30 – 40 seconds.
- Step 3: Make The Roux: Add flour and cook, stirring, until smooth, 2 minutes. You can use a gluten free flour to make gluten free scalloped potatoes or all purpose flour for this step.
- Step 4: Make the Cream Sauce: Add cream, milk, thyme, salt, and pepper; bring to a simmer. Add potatoes; cook, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are just tender, 8–10 minutes.
- Step 5: Transfer mixture to a greased baking dish. Use the back of a spoon to press mixture down.
- Step 6: Sprinkle with paprika.
- Step 7: Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown and a knife inserted into middle of potatoes slides in easily, about 40 minutes.
Questions You May Have
Use Yukon Gold potatoes or red-skinned potatoes. Both are a waxy potato with less starch, which means they’ll hold their shape better when thin sliced and baked. A starchy potato like a Russet, will tend to break down and fall apart. Save those russet potatoes for recipes like these Slow Cooker Roasted Potatoes.
A mandolin. I’ve had my OXO Good Grips Mandolin Slicer for years and it’s been worth it’s weight in gold. And I wouldn’t use my mandolin without my Victorinox Cutlery UltraShield Cut Resistant Glove. It protects your hands and fingers from injury, and It works much better and is easier to manage than the guider tool that comes with the mandolin.
These are best baked and served immediately. However, you can make them in advance. For make ahead scalloped potatoes, bake them per recipe instructions. Let them cool completely to room temperature. Cover tightly with foil and refrigerate for up to three days. When ready to serve, let the scalloped potatoes come to room temperature while you pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are heated through.
Both Yukon Gold and Red Skinned Potatoes have tender skins that don’t need to be peeled, however, for this creamy delicate and white scalloped potato casserole, it’s better for the potatoes to be peeled, for appearance reasons.
Tips For Success
- Evenly sliced potatoes will cook more consistently … use a mandolin.
- Heavy whipping cream. Don’t try to skimp on fat calories and use half and half. The fat content in cream simply cooks better and doesn’t separate like milk or half and half. In addition, as the potatoes cook, they will release some starchy moisture into the cream. Better to have that moisture mix with thick luscious cream for a beautiful thick sauce.
What To Serve With Scalloped Potatoes
Scalloped potatoes are a very popular Easter side dish along with Brown Sugar Green Beans with Bacon. So a baked ham is a perfect main course. Other ideas are:
Consider seafood, like this recipe for Heavenly Halibut. Or pair scalloped potatoes with a steak, like my recipe for Beef Tagliata. And don’t forget about chicken like this Chicken Mushroom and Spinach Skillet.
Whatever protein you choose, don’t forget a bright salad with my Red Wine Vinegar Dressing. Enjoy!
Recipe for Scalloped Potatoes Without Cheese
I hope you give this recipe a try. It’s truly a treat, and especially if you’re needing a gluten free scalloped potato recipe.
More Delicious Potato Recipes
And don’t miss my side dish category, you’ll find lots of great recipes including the most popular on my site for Broccoli Rice and Cheese Casserole. A blast from the past and crazy delicious.
If you liked this recipe, please leave a star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the recipe card below and leave a comment. I always appreciate your feedback and hearing how everything went.
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Scalloped Potatoes, No Cheese, No Canned Soups, Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter plus more for greasing
- 6 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 large sweet onion thinly sliced
- ½ cup Gluten Free Flour or all-purpose flour
- 3 cups heavy cream
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2.5 teaspoons dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper
- 3 pounds Potatoes Yukon gold or red potatoes. Peeled and sliced ⅛ inch thick.
- ½ teaspoon paprika
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350°. Grease a casserole baking dish with butter; set aside. a 9 x 13" baking works well here.
- Melt butter in a 6-quart Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 7 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Less than one minute.
- Add flour; cook, stirring, until smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Add cream, milk, thyme, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil. Add potatoes; cook, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are just tender, 8–10 minutes.
- At this point, taste the sauce and adjust for more salt if needed.
- Transfer mixture to prepared baking dish. Using a spoon, press mixture down; sprinkle with paprika. Bake until golden brown and a knife inserted into middle of potatoes slides in easily, about 40 minutes.
Notes
- Evenly sliced potatoes will cook more consistently … use a mandolin.
- Heavy whipping cream. Don’t try to skimp on fat calories and use half and half. The fat content in cream simply cooks better and doesn’t separate like milk or half and half. In addition, as the potatoes cook, they will release some starchy moisture into the cream. Better to have that moisture mix with thick luscious cream for a beautiful thick sauce.
Nutrition
Gluten Free Scalloped Potatoes, No Cheese, No Canned Soups … It’s what’s for a side dish.
Why Trust These Recipes? Lea Ann Brown has lived, worked and played in Colorado for 45 years. She has immersed herself in the Colorado Culinary space, is a Culinary School Graduate and publishes her Colorado food Blog, Cooking On The Ranch.
Hey, when my grandma made scalloped potatoes the HAM was the side dish and no one except my dad cared if we even had any ham and NO cheese ever! Cheese just ruined the taste of the potatoes. Need to make sure it had a lot of thinly sliced onions and plenty of salt and pepper too. My grandma sprinkled the top pf each layer with flour as the thickener. Many years ago I worked at a roast beef fast food restaurant and we had to wear those metal mesh like gloves to protect our hands from blade nicks. I eventually bought myself a pair of them. They are inexpensive and well worth the cost. I think a lot of people are going to be making those potatoes soon and I just bought a 3 pound bag of the Yukon Gold potatoes so I am all set. I inherited my great grandma’s handwritten cookbook written in the 1890’s so just trying to decipher her old style handwriting has been difficult but recipes are familiar and well worth it.
Hi Mertie, and thanks so much for your delightful note. When I first started cooking I used to pile on the cheese for scalloped potatoes and soon realized that the potatoes simply didn’t need it. They’re too delicious on their own. And I agree, those gloves are fabulous. Make it a delicious day.
Could you omit the thyme in the recipe?
Absolutely. If you don’t like thyme, just leave it out. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Hello. I inherited this cookbook from my Mom called Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, by Meta Given. Published 1947. It still has little scribbles in it from my baby hands. It literally has thousands of recipes…a lot I’d never even heard of ! But there is a scalloped potato recipe called Escalloped Potatoes and Ham, and is very similar to the one here on your site. Except there is no flour use in it. Just ham, potatoes, milk and salt. It involves bringing everything to a boil, adding the potatoes, then to a boil again. I can’t really see how it would thicken….. Anyway I was excited to find your recipe as it’s very close to the one in the “Modern” cookbook lol. I plan on following it tonight and using my mandolin of course. I’m still debating whether or not to add ham or not…..
Cheers,
Lee
I have a couple of extremely old cookbooks similar to the one you describe. And yes, so many recipes that I have not idea what they are. Rather fun to browse.
When my mom started making scalloped potatoes when I was a child, there was always ham involved. So delicious.
With regard to making scalloped potatoes without flour: The starch that is released from the potatoes, after they boil in the milk should thicken the sauce. The only way it wouldn’t is if the recipe calls for too much milk.
Did you try it? Did it thicken?
Add the ham – that is how my Mom always made it – YUMMY YUMMY and WOW when leftovers are heated up the next day!
Seems like the recipe is missing and/or a bad link to continue reading “Click Here” just brings you back to the previous/same description page. sure would like to try it. : )
Thanks so much for letting me know. I’ve fixed it. 🙂
Thank you,thank you,thank you. My mom made scalloped potatoes exactly this way,and they were always so delicious. Most all recipes today include some type of cheese…. Those are au gratin potatoes,not true scalloped potatoes. Now-I have to go make some potatoes.
I’m going to make this one. Ree Drummond has one that is similar, but includes diced ham to make it a “meal”. I have made that one several times and my wife and I love it. I’m going to be adding the ham and will let you know how it turns out 🙂
I made these for dinner and they were very good. Most recipes for scalloped potatoes are very bland. This one is delicious. I surely plan on making these on a regular basis!
Hi Constance and thanks so much for the compliment. So glad you liked the recipe and thanks for taking the time to write a review. Lea Ann
My mom always made this too, usually when we had ham.
I’m definitely giving it a try this weekend.
Scalloped potatoes are just the best.
Well, I’ve got to eat soon – I’m salivating. Bob loves scalloped potatoes, and I’ve made them recently. My recipe mimics yours, but I do put some shredded sharp cheddar in the sauce. If we have leftover, we wrap them into a breakfast burrito.
One of my fondest memories was that after Easter my mother would make scalloped potatoes. She would layer left-over ham slices in between the potatoes and onions and it was thickened with just flour and milk with very little salt. So simple and so good. I love the sound of this recipe with the thyme.
These potatoes are my idea of comfort food. I’d eat them alone for my meal– nothing else needed even though that ham is gorgeous.
I haven’t had scalloped potatoes in years. Your meal would be a delicious one for Easter.
I love scalloped potatoes and thanks so much for the reminder as I have not made these for such a long time. Loving the photo of you using your mandolin with the glove. I am sure you have heard about my dreaded mandolin incident. One cannot be too careful!. Have a super weekend.
Hi Lea Ann, love potatoes prepared any way. This looks delicious, what a great classic dish.
These sound delicious – I don’t know why I’ve never added thyme! Mmm
We just love scalloped potatoes and yours look very good.
Thank you Larry – we love scalloped potatoes too. Tis the season for ham and scalloped potatoes.
Lea Ann, with a gorgeous potato dish like that, I don’t need anything else. Meat and potatoes? Hold the meat!
I agree Jean! 🙂
Now I’m craving scalloped potatoes and it’s only breakfast time here…
Sam
I wish I had a big ol bowl of scalloped potatoes for breakfast!
I grew up on these…out of the box…yours look SOOOO much better 🙂
Always good to hear from you Sue. I’ve never had them out of a box, but I had my fill of mac and cheese from that blue box. Good stuff.