WHAT THE WHAT.

Parmesan and bacon? Could there be 2 tastier foods? I think the answer is NO.

Much like most of my blog posts start, I’ve been seeing crock pot mashed potatoes floating around on Pinterest. In my world, crock pot = easy. And if you’ve learned nothing about me in reading my blog, you know I LOVE easy stuff.

I bought an 8 pound bag of potatoes for my crock pot freezer meal day and I only used a few so I had these potatoes floating around and did not want to throw them away. I also had some freshly grated parm cheese from that day. What I didn’t have (but felt I absolutely needed 1 hour before dinner was on the table) was bacon. So I actually ran to the grocery store and got bacon (and brownies…it was half price brownie Wednesday!) to add to the potatoes. This might’ve been the best decision I’ve ever had. Ever. Well, besides marrying a man who loves bacon as much as I do.

Anyway, I don’t think I will ever make mashed potatoes any other way again. This was so easy and so delicious. You will not even believe it. Oh, and it’s my recipe! I actually made it up! WAHOO!!

Here’s what you need:

*5 pound of potatoes, peeled and diced. I used russet.
*1.5 cups chicken stock / broth
*1 stick of butter, cubed
*1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
*8 oz cream cheese
*1/2 cup sour cream
*1 package (….less one piece…because I ate it;…oops) bacon, cooked and chopped (I did big pieces and I also chopped it while it still had some grease on it so the bacon taste would be all throughout the potatoes. Don’t judge me.)

Place the diced potatoes in the crock pot with the chicken stock / broth and the cubed butter.

Side note – I just realized that my calendar back there is still on April 1st. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be.

Cook the potatoes on high for 4 hours. My crock pot cooks pretty quickly – always faster than recipes call for, so I probably could’ve done 3 or 3.5.

Before they’re done, cook your bacon in your preferred method (we bake it in a glass dish for 15 minutes at 425) and chop it up.

Mash the heck out of your potatoes – at least to your preferred texture. Add the rest of your ingredients (cream cheese, parm cheese, sour cream, bacon). Taste it and then add salt and pepper to taste. I never measure out my salt and pepper because I tend to salt more than the average person.

I just couldn’t resist taking a picture of the delicious bacon (that I didn’t completely de-grease because it looked so delicious.) sitting on top of the potatoes.

Aaaaaand all the fork marks from me “taste testing.”

Cooking them in the chicken stock made them so creamy. You don’t even have to add milk to these. You have GOT to try them. We all loved them. This could be a meal in itself! Just add some broccoli!

Happy cooking!