Very Fattening, Best Ever Hash Brown Casserole

So, this casserole has been with me for about 30 years. One day a friend of mine made a potato casserole for a covered dish we had at church. She was a meticulous person and went to a whooooole lot of trouble to make this FABULOUSLY, SINFULLY DELICIOUS dish. She even riced the potatoes, for pete's sake. I didn't even know what that WAS at the time, but I was very impressed, I can tell you. The original recipe had heavy cream and 2 sticks of real butter...well, I guess you get the picture. It was yummy, yummy, yummy.

Not long after I had that dish, I discovered a recipe that sort of sounded like the same thing, BUT it was waaaaay easier to make. It uses frozen hash browns and cream soups to make it just as yummy AND it still uses lots of butter. BEWARE..this dish is habit-forming and definitely NOT conducive to dieting.

Ingredients

1-2 lb bag cubed frozen hash brown potatoes
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1-10 oz package cheddar cheese, grated
1-8 oz sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 tsp salt
Pepper to taste
2 sticks butter or margarine, melted separately
1 cup bread crumbs

A note about the ingredients...just like my other fattening dishes (Worsetta for example), this casserole can be made with reduced fat soup, sour cream and 2% cheddar cheese, BUT don't skimp on the butter. If you do use the reduced stuff, add a little extra salt to the mixture. The hash browns that have worked the best in this recipe for me come from Kroger and are the Kroger brand. They have to be the cubed kind of hash browns to work properly.

1. Turn oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix hash browns, onions, cheese, sour cream, soup, salt, pepper and one stick of melted butter in a very large mixing bowl.

3. Spray the bottom and sides of a 13x10x2 baking dish (I use a glass one). Spread the hash brown mixture into the baking dish, making sure it's even all around.

4. Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top and spoon the second stick of butter over the bread crumbs, making sure each area gets buttered.

5. Bake for 1 hour...Enjoy!