Gourmet Tater Tot Casserole

We are now officially out of the mid west and I can stop pretending that calling something hot dish is socially acceptable. I don't think that in our 10 years living there I ever willingly called something I made a hot dish. Now I don't even have to silently nod as I inwardly cringe at the word.

No matter what it's called, I've been craving a tater tot covered meat dish for weeks now. As I checked out various recipes online I was prepared to make the standard ground beef and cheese casserole but then I came across this amped up version of tater tot casserole and I was inspired!

Homemade Idaho® Potato Cheesy Tater Tots

I started to make a list of everything that you can user tater tots for and I stopped writing after about 20 ideas. Tater tots are so amazing all on their own but they also make one of my favorite dishes in the world, Tater Tot Hotdish.

Then I realized that my kids really don't even eat them that often, if ever really! They take their own lunches to school and we really don't buy the frozen ones even though I love them. Whenever I crave them, I typically get them at work for lunch so we really don't have them at home very often.