Side dishes · Potato sides

Scalloped potatoes

Name: Scalloped potatoes
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 75 min
Total time: 95 min
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients: 2 3/4 lb gold potatoes, sliced 3 mm thin; 1 1/2 cups heavy cream; 1 cup whole milk; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1 1/2 tbsp butter, for the dish; 1 1/2 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper; 1/2 tsp dried thyme; 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Thin-sliced potatoes baked slow in garlic cream until the top is burnished and the middle is silk. The holiday side that outranks the roast it accompanies.

Time: 95 min (20 prep + 75 cook)
Servings: 8
Per serving: 363 kcal
Protein: 9 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

2 3/4 lb gold potatoes, sliced 3 mm thin1200 g
1 1/2 cups heavy cream360 g
1 cup whole milk240 g
3 cloves garlic, minced10 g
1 1/2 tbsp butter, for the dish20 g
1 1/2 tsp salt8 g
1/2 tsp black pepper1 g
1/2 tsp dried thyme1 g
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded120 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Warm the cream, milk, garlic, salt, pepper and thyme in a saucepan — starting the liquid warm halves the bake time gamble.
Shingle the potato slices in a buttered dish in three layers, pouring liquid and scattering a little cheese between each.
Cover with foil, 175°C for 45 minutes; uncover, rest of the cheese on top, 25–30 more until a knife slides in clean and the top is bronzed.
Rest 15 minutes — the cream sets from pourable to spoonable as it cools.

Why this score

easy to overeat

Dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

9% of kcal

67% water

7 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 2903 kcal goes into the pot, 1960 g of ingredients comes out as ~1500 g of food → 194 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 194
Protein: (9%); 5 g
Fat: (61%); 13 g
Carbohydrates: (30%); 15 g
of which sugar: 2 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 282 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More side dishes

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.