Pizza Tater Tot Hot Dish

We took a midwest staple and turned it into a Minnesota masterpiece. We definitely wanted to use a Minnesota sauce base. First choice was Davanni’s but when we saw Savoy’s in the aisle at our local grocery store (CUB Foods), we thought it would work better because of the thickness. It worked perfectly. Now, this was the first time attempting this new creation and it can be altered many ways. However, we were very impressed with our results. We hope you enjoy the twist on this classic as much as we did.

Ingredients

1 lb Sweet Italian Sausage
4 oz button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 jar pizza sauce (we used one 14 oz jar)
4 oz pizza mix cheese
8 oz mozzarella
1/8 cup shredded parmesan
16 oz frozen tater tots (or whatever fits in cast iron)
pepperoni (as much as your heart desires)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a cast iron, brown up the Italian sausage. If you are not baking in the cast iron, you can brown up the sausage in a normal skillet. We kept ours in bigger chunks.

Then add the diced onions and sauté for 3-5 minutes until the onions become translucent. Next turn off the heat and add in the sliced mushrooms. Give that a stir.

After that, fold in the pizza sauce and shredded parmesan cheese.

Top with the pizza mix cheese. Then top that with the frozen tater tots.

Bake for 30-35 minutes at 425 degrees until tots are nice and golden brown. Top with mozzarella cheese, pepperoni (we used cups because they are cool!) and sprinkle with dried basil (optional).

Bake for another 5-8 minutes until cheese is melted to your desired liking. Viola!

Some things to note: We used a cast iron for this dish. You do not have to. You can prepare the meat and sauce layer in a skillet and transfer to a baking dish and then top with tots and cheese. If you are using a cast iron, make sure to wash and season the pan promptly after use. The tomatoes sauce is acidic and may cause rusting if it sits in the cast iron for too long.

We let ours sit for about 5 minutes before dishing. The parmesan cheese and the thick sauce also helped keep it together.