Somewhat Healthier Tator Tot Casserole

Given that it's not very fun to eat steamed chicken breast and broccoli each and every day, I'm all about variety in the food I make and in recipe makeovers for things that starting out aren't very healthy but can be lightened up with just a few tweaks.  I was browsing recipe sites as I tend to do, when I came across this recipe makeover for tator tot casserole. I had never heard of such a thing, but it sounded obnoxious and delicious all at the same time.  I kind of think of it as Americanized shepherd's pie.  

I made some further modifications to the recipe, including going back to actual tator tots versus the "smiles" things that they used. I discovered that, for some reason, the extra crispy tator tots are actually lower in calories than regular tator tots, so I used them in the recipe (extra crispy: 12 tots for 170 calories versus 160 calories for just 9 regular tots). I also added more veggies.  Overall, it's a pretty easy recipe.  And so tasty!

Ingredients: 

1 tablespoon canola oil
frozen tator tots (I used extra crunchy)
8 ounces mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 pound lean ground beef or turkey (90% or higher)
1 large carrot, peeled and shredded (about 1 cup) (I just bought pre-shredded carrot and chopped it up some more)
One onion, chopped
Handful of peas (I used frozen)
A few garlic cloves, minced (I used 4, but I like garlic a lot!)
½ teaspoon black pepper
Kosher salt
One 10¾-ounce can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup
One 10¾-ounce can filled with 1% lowfat milk (basically once you dump the soup into the pan, fill the soup can with an equivalent amount of milk and dump it in)
2 cups shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese, divided (I used Cabot's 75% light sharp cheddar cheese - it comes in a block, so I grated it extra fine) [Alternatively, you can use the pre-shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese.  When I did this, I just ended up using about 1 and 1/2 cups of cheese instead of 2.]

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

2. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven or saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add the turkey or beef and cook until no longer pink.  Remove the meat from the pan and reserve it.  Turn the heat down to medium.

3. If there is a ton of oil there, drain most of it away.  If only a little oil, leave it.  Then add the mushrooms, onion, carrots, and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, about 5-10 minutes.  You especially want to make sure that the carrot isn't still crunchy.  At this point, dump the meat back into the pan.

4. Season with salt and additional pepper to taste.

4. Stir in the soup, milk, and, 1 cup of the cheese (the mixture will seem very thin at this point, but don’t worry). Heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture comes to a simmer. Remove from the heat.  Add the peas at this point.

5. Pour the meat mixture into a 13-inch baking pan or dish.  Of the remaining cheese, sprinkle all but about 1/4 cup of it across the top and then arrange the frozen tator tots over this into neat rows. Bake casserole in a 350 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes.

6. Then, raise the heat to 420 degrees.  Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the tots and cook another 10 minutes, or until all cheese is melted and the tots are crunchy to your liking. 

The last time I made this recipe, I had pre-cooked shredded chicken left over so I used that instead of ground meat.  I have to say that I like the ground turkey better than the shredded chicken.  Because I used less meat, I had less filling so made this in an 8x8 pan.  It was still good though!