Garlic Parmesan Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes ?

               you guys, I have never spent nearly half as long coming up with a recipe title, than I have for this post.  I went back and forth on cheesy scalloped potatoes or potatoes au gratin.  Which then led to a spiral of googling to try and figure out what the heck the difference between scalloped potatoes and potatoes au gratin is.  My deduction?  It’s still not very clear!  Traditionally, scalloped potatoes are baked with no cheese, in a cream sauce, most often made with raw flour in the sauce that thickens up as it bakes… and potatoes au gratin are cheesy potatoes, but traditionally have a breadcrumb topping.  However, so many scalloped potatoes recipes have cheese in them, and not many au gratin recipes have the breadcrumbs.  So confusing

In the end, I went with my past… and called this recipe cheesy scalloped potatoes, since when I was growing up, my Mom made scalloped potatoes, and they always had cheese in them.  So if you make this, but disagree with the name, go ahead and call them whatever you’d like

Can you just imagine how amazing your house will smell while this ultra cheesy dish is baking?  You’ll have to find something to do to keep yourself busy, because you’ll definitely be hungry!
I chose a nice mix of Yukon gold and red potatoes to layer in this dish, and left them unpeeled.

 That’s a personal preference of mine, but if you’d prefer to peel them, go ahead and peel ’em up
Growing up, of course we had scalloped potatoes for holiday meals like Easter, Thanksgiving, etc, but we’d also have them for regular weekend meals as well!  This dish does take some time to bake, about 90 minutes… BUT, it’s definitely hands off time.  You just pop it in the oven and all you have to do is remove the foil after about 60 minutes.

You could certainly microwave your sliced potatoes for about 10 minutes, to cut down on the total baking time (it will take about 45-50 minutes), which could make this a go to side dish for a weeknight meal as well.