Secret Ingredient Hashbrown Casserole

A creamy, cheesy hashbrown casserole recipe made with French onion dip instead of sour cream that’s even better than Cracker Barrel’s!

A few years ago I decided to make a big Christmas dinner for some friends of ours who’d had a rough couple of months to try to make things easier for them during the holidays.

Side note: if you’re ever looking for a way to help someone out at Christmas, cooking a meal is a great idea because receiving food never feels like taking a hand-out which can be hard for hardworking, proud folks.

I made the typical Southern Christmas dinner of baked ham, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, etc. and was looking for one more casserole-type dish that I could make because they’re just so easy to travel with and reheat.

I decided I wanted to make a hashbrown casserole and realized I’d never actually made one before! Which seems odd since it just seems like something everybody ought to know how to make!

I looked through a few cookbooks and on some of my favorite recipe blogs to learn the basics: frozen hashbrowns, cream of something soup, sour cream and cheese. Some recipes called for onion and some didn’t.

I wanted to add onions to mine but I knew not everyone likes them so I had an idea… I decided to use cream of onion soup (which wasn’t rocket science) but I also decided to use French onion dip instead of sour cream!
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