Hashbrown Casserole Recipe

by Mary Anne Swanstrom
(The Huntsville Times )

In the original hashbrown casserole recipe, the butter alone contains 2,442 calories and 276 fat grams. That blows most people's fat-gram allowance for at least four days. The sour cream contributes an extra 984 calories and 96 fat grams. And the cheese contains 455 calories and 37 fat grams.

Those ingredients pile 3,881 calories and 409 fat grams onto this potato dish. Trimming that fat down to a more reasonable size while keeping the flavor was my primary mission.

The original recipe said to drizzle a melted stick of butter over the potato mixture before baking, but I deleted that step. In my opinion, instead of enhancing the casserole's flavor, that extra butter only made the dish greasy. That still left a cup of butter in Scanlan's version, but I found that using just 1/4 cup kept the buttery taste while slashing the calorie count and fat content.

I also chose light sour cream and cut the amount in half, which saved 744 calories and 80 fat grams. And I trimmed the amount of cheese and used reduced-fat sharp cheddar instead of mild cheddar. That change cut 185 calories and 19 fat grams.

I simply shaved off about 100 more calories by using 1 cup of corn flakes instead of 2 cups. Mixing in Campbell's Healthy Request Cream of Chicken soup instead of the regular variety trims an extra 100 calories, about 14 fat grams and 1,025 milligrams of sodium.

One cup of the original hash brown casserole contains 624 calories and 49.3 fat grams. If you ate a large order of McDonald's fries instead, you'd save 54 calories and 19.3 grams of fat.

But the lightened-up version here contains 56 percent fewer calories and 77 percent less fat than the original recipe. You can have a cup of my hash brown casserole for 273 calories and 11.2 fat grams.



Hashbrown Casserole Recipe

Makes 9 servings.

Ingredients:

2 pounds frozen hash browns, thawed

3/4 cup sharp cheddar cheese made with 2 percent milk

1 cup light sour cream or plain yoghurt

1 can Campbell's Healthy Request Cream of Chicken soup, undiluted

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup minced onion

1/4 cup butter, melted

Cooking spray

1 cup corn flakes, crushed


Preparation:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine first seven ingredients in a large bowl.

Step 2: Spoon into a 13x9-inch baking dish lightly coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle crushed corn flakes evenly over the potato mixture. Bake for 1 hour or until bubbly.


Nutrition info per 1-cup serving:

273 calories, 11.2 fat grams, 22 mg cholesterol, 335 mg sodium, 38 carb grams, 2 fiber grams, 6.4 protein grams.


*Here I'd like to tell you about my favorite diet program that uses a lot of the healthy lower GI foods: Isabel de los Rios' 'The Diet Solution Program'.

The Diet Solution Program favours a long term health orientated approach to fat loss, but not offering anyone a quick fix to their weight troubles. It has loads of valuable data and research to support its approach. I personally investigated the program thoroughly and my mum has been using it for a while now. I have to say she got some great results.

The nutrition plan is one of the healthiest we have seen, a strong core focus on vegetables, fruits, vitamin dense foods, lean proteins, select dairy produce and a clear approach to not expecting one diet to work for all body types. So give it a try and let me know how you’re doing.*

Original Hashbrown Casserole Recipe