This easy recipe for cheesy hash brown nests is a fun way to serve poached, soft boiled and scrambled eggs. And they are great for barbecue, too! Bet you can think of even more things to serve in this incredible, edible potato bowl.
This recipe started out as a result of an overabundance of Yukon gold potatoes in my kitchen. With just the Southern husband and me in the house, I like to buy things by twos, but at some point our local market didn’t have loose Yukons. Nope, they only had them in the 5 pound bag, and I needed my Yukons, so I went for the five pound bag.
I finished making what I was making, and then I still had pounds of Yukons left over. And since we have a strict no ingredient left behind rule around these parts, I needed to get inventive…and so I bring you cheesy hash brown nests, which used up a pound of those Yukons and led to ALL kinds of Southern husband happiness. Got a pound of potatoes and a muffin tin? Let’s make them!
You need to start by grating them up – no need to peel them, just scrub them up well with your handy vegetable scrubber, and if you have a food processor with a grater attachment the shredding will take you about two minutes.
Now mix up that pile of shredded potato goodness with some butter, a little salt and pepper and some cheddar cheese (or really, any kind of shredded cheese that you like). Now line your muffin tin with squares of foil – if you make the squares just a little bigger than the muffin tin opening, that will make the cheese hash brown nests removal that much easier.
Spray the foil-lined muffin cups with cooking spray and divide the potato mixture among the 12 cups. Now smoosh the mixture down along the bottom and up the sides, and pop them in the oven for about 45 minutes. When they are cool enough to handle, lift them out using the edges of the foil liners, peel the foil off and you are ready to fill them up. We ate our first new nests filled with scrambled eggs and a little parsley. Then we had 8 nests to go.
So we ate a few more the next day filled with poached eggs (and click here for my never-fail poached eggs method.)
Some people drizzled theirs with Sriracha sauce. Some wimpier folks didn’t (raises hand).
Four to go. I was about to go back to the scrambled eggs when the Southern husband sprang into action and filled the rest of them with some leftover barbecue and oh my my.
And we all lived happily ever after. What would YOU fill them with?
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Cheesy Hash Brown Nests
Prep Time: 15 minutes- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 12 nests 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
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Pin RecipeIngredients
- 1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 and line a 12 cup muffin pan with foil squares. Spray with cooking spray.
- Peel the potatoes and grate them into shreds (the grating attachment on your food processor is perfect for this!
- Mix all ingredients together. Divide the mixture among the 12 muffin cups and press onto the bottom and sides of the cups. Bake until crispy, about 45 minutes.
- When cool enough to handle, take out of the muffin cups and peel away the foil. Fill with your choice of eggs (or barbecue!)
How about filling them with some loaded mashed potatoes? You know, loaded with bacon and chives and sour cream and more cheese. Better put some butter in there, too. It could be like a mini version of a twice baked potato, only more fun to eat!
OMG. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Great idea!!
Love these dainty nests! They look so delicious, perfect for a brunch!
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This is genius!! Shredded potatoes are so versatile, I should definitely make more stuff with it! I would definitely add the sriracha. Possibilities are endless! It would be fun to serve these for company and people could fill their own.
Well, I just LOVE that company idea! I’m definitely doing that. :)
These nests look fabulous, Kate! I mean, does it get any better than cheesy, hash-browned, and stuffed with all kinds of favorite foods? I think not. So count me in!!!
Thanks for including a link to my recipe for another idea. So many wonderful ways to eat these!
I can’t wait to make them!!!
Robyn xo
My husband is working his way through the leftover nests from this weekend and is getting more and more creative about what he fills them with! :)
Thanks my friend! I always find so many ways to use our recipes together! xo