Martha Stewart’s Scalloped Potatoes Are Classic, Creamy, and Seriously Good

Martha Stewart is beloved for her classic, tried-and-true recipes — from casseroles to desserts — so it’s no surprise she’s been a consistent contender in our recipe battles. While she hasn’t yet taken the top spot (although we did prefer her Parker House rolls to the Pioneer Woman’s), her chewy brownie recipe almost edged out Alton’s, and when we’re hankering for a chocolate chip cookie with crispy edges and a super-soft center, we now know just the woman to turn to.

When it came time to test out the most popular recipes for scalloped potatoes, we knew we had to include Martha’s five-star creamy variety. Would this be Martha’s moment to take the top spot? We headed to the kitchen to find out.

Get the recipe: Creamy Scalloped Potatoes from Martha Stewart

I love the way this recipe starts: You rub a clove of garlic all over your baking dish before greasing the dish with butter. It’s so smart (since you’re using the garlic in the recipe anyway), but I rarely see that tip! You’ll then peel and thinly slice the potatoes and transfer them to a large pot with the garlic, cream, milk, thyme, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Bring this to a boil, reduce the heat, then simmer. Let it cool.

Next up is layering. Spoon one third of the mixture into the baking dish, sprinkle with Gruyère, and repeat the layering twice more. You’ll then cover the dish with parchment-lined foil — which simply means putting a sheet of parchment between the food and the foil so they don’t come in contact. Bake until the potatoes are tender, remove the parchment and foil, and broil until the potatoes are bubbly and browned. Let cool 15 minutes before serving.

These are excellent scalloped potatoes, the kind you’d find in a fine-dining restaurant, but are within reach of any home cook. Yes, they contain some cheese (some say scalloped potatoes should be cheese-free), but it’s freshly grated Gruyère — the perfect choice for this type of recipe. It’s just enough to add excellent flavor without overshadowing the potatoes and cream, and facilitates the casserole’s gorgeous golden-brown color. Broiling the dish to brown the top is a splendid idea, and helps make this dish not only the most delicious, but also the most attractive, with Insta-worthy good looks and appeal.

The directions in this recipe are clear and easy to follow — just be sure to look for the measurements for salt and pepper in the method, because they aren’t listed among the ingredients. Speaking of seasonings, a simple mix of salt, pepper, fresh thyme, and freshly grated nutmeg worked wonders here, and I appreciated that these potatoes weren’t seasoned too aggressively. Warming the potato slices in the cream before transferring them to the baking dish takes advantage of the natural thickening power of their starch, and encourages the potatoes to cook more evenly.

This recipe also includes make-ahead directions, giving you a strategy for serving restaurant-quality scalloped potatoes on a busy weeknight, or getting a jumpstart on a dinner party. 

These dreamy scalloped potatoes are absolutely delicious. Make them as often as you can — I certainly plan to. Here are a few tips before you get started.

1. Weigh your potatoes. You want to be sure you’re using 4 pounds. The recipe says that’s about 8 medium-sized potatoes, but it took 12 potatoes from my bag to add up to 4 pounds. Had I stopped at only 8, the other ingredients would have been out of proportion. 

2. Use a shallow baking dish. The recipe calls for a 3-quart baking dish. I can tell you from experience that a shallow dish works better than a tall one for scalloped potatoes, but if you don’t have a proper gratin dish, a trusty glass or ceramic 9×13-inch baking dish works very well.

3. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the potatoes. When it comes time to transfer the potatoes to the baking dish, use a slotted spoon, working gently to avoid separating the layered slices. After layering the potatoes and cheese, drizzle the liquid over the top, letting it seep down into the dish.

3. Rest the potatoes for 30 minutes. The only reason that I didn’t give this recipe a perfect score is that the texture and flavor of the dish reached their peak after 30 minutes of resting instead of the 15 mentioned in the recipe. Although kudos to this recipe for being the only one that even mentioned the all-important rest.

Rating: 9.5/10

Have you ever made Martha Stewart’s Creamy Scalloped Potatoes? Tell us what you thought!