When I was in high school, my mom would cook this once in a while. Her version was more of a side dish, being pretty much has browns, sour cream, and cheese. I made a couple alterations, turning it into more of a main dish casserole. As with many of my easy bachelor recipes this dish can be made up and frozen ahead of time for nights when you don’t have time to cook. And there will be a couple variations at the end of the recipe so you can change the dish up every now and then. After all, easy bachelor recipes are no fun if you can’t change them up once in a while.

1 lb ground beef

1 finely chopped onion

1 can cream of broccoli soup

1 cup fat free sour cream

1 cup milk

2.5 cups grated cheddar

2 tsp salt

1.5 Tbsp pepper

2 tsp cayenne

1 kg bag frozen hash browns

2 cups broccoli florets

Heat a skillet to medium. Add ground beef and cook, stirring until cooked through and slightly browned. Set beef aside and drain off all but 1 Tbsp fat. Add onion and cook until soft and translucent, 5-10 minutes. In a large bowl combine soup, sour cream, milk, cheddar, salt, pepper and cayenne. Add hash browns, broccoli florets, ground beef and onion. Stir until thoroughly combined.

Place hash brown mixture in a greased 9X16 inch shallow baking dish and cover with tin foil. At this point the casserole can be frozen until ready for use. When ready to cook, bake the casserole covered with tin foil for 45 minutes at 350F. For the last 15 minutes remove tin foil to let casserole brown nicely on top. Remove from oven, let stand 5 minutes and serve.

Now, there are a couple ways I like to change this dish up once in a while. If you want to serve it as a side dish, omit the ground beef and broccoli. If you want to give some extra nutritional value to your meal, you can’t go wrong with more veggies. Sometimes I like to add a tomato that I’ve seeded and chopped fine along with a finely chopped red bell pepper. Another good way to change the recipe up a little bit is to combine 2 cups bread crumbs with ½ cup melted butter. Sprinkle over casserole and bake as directed above.