Ham and Potatoes au Gratin

Ham and Potatoes au Gratin is a rich and flavorful scalloped potato casserole with cheese. It’s a great recipe for using up leftover ham. This is an easy to make, classic dish that is family friendly and delicious!

If you’re looking for more recipes to use up leftover ham, you might like to try our recipes for Cheesy Baked Penne, Crescent Roll Ham and Cheese Pinwheels or Tater Tot Breakfast Casserole.

This is one of those nostalgic recipes that may remind you of holiday meals when you were younger. If you’re heavy-handed on the ham, you can consider this to be a main dish to serve with a salad. It also happens to be a great side dish to chicken or roast beef. It’s great comfort food!

What’s the difference between scalloped potatoes and au gratin potatoes?

Technically, scalloped potatoes do not include cheese. And au gratin potatoes contain cheese. In my world, they both contain cheese! Check out my Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes!

Ingredients Needed:

• Butter: Use unsalted or salted butter. But because the ham is plenty salty, be careful with adding too much salt. If you use salted butter, don’t add any salt at all.
• Garlic: This will add a bit of flavor!
• Potato: The best potatoes to use for an au gratin are starchy Russet potatoes or Yukon Gold. You can leave the peel on of peel the potatoes.
• Ham: Leftover ham is perfect for using in this recipe. If you don’t have leftover ham, look for a ham slice in the bacon section of your market. You can also purchase already cubed ham.
• Cheese: We use a colby-jack blend for this ham and potatoes au gratin. Feel free to experiment with the cheese. I suggest trying cheddar cheese, Gruyere, gouda, fontina or havarti.
• Flour: All purpose flour is used to thicken the sauce.
• Salt and Pepper
• Half and Half: Regular cream may be used in place of the half and half, if desired.
• Fresh Parsley: Since it’s only for garnish, it’s optional. Green onion would also be a good garnish.

How to make Ham and Potatoes au Gratin:

The full, printable recipe is at the end of this post.

Melt the butter in a large pot. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Pull the pot from heat, and stir in the potatoes, ham, cheese and flour. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Pour the cream into the pot, and return the pot to heat. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low. Cover, and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring once in a while, until the potatoes are tender. They should be soft enough to poke through with a fork. Garnish with parsley.

What’s the best way to slice potatoes?

For nice, even slices, use a mandolin or the slicing blade on your food processor. You can also use a sharp knife to carefully cut thin slices. It’s important that the potato slices are thin and uniform so the ham and potatoes au gratin cooks evenly.

Alternative cooking methods:

In this recipe, you’ll be cooking the potatoes on the stove. Alternately, you can put the potatoes in a casserole dish, cover with foil and bake for 40 to 60 minutes (plus another 20 minutes with the foil off). If you’d like to use your crockpot, place the potatoes and everything else in the crockpot insert and cook on high for 3 to 4 hours.

What You’ll Love About This Recipe:

1. It’s rich and creamy and delicious.
2. It’s a great way to use up leftover ham in a dish that everyone will love.
3. This is a dish that can be made as a weeknight meal, but it’s also impressive to serve to guests.