The easiest, most delicious meal you’ve never heard of.
This is an old Murphy Family recipe that my Mom used to make all the time. Right now you’re probably wondering what P.O.P.S stands for? Well, my Mom would call it Peppers, Onions, Potatoes and Sausage Casserole. But that’s way too long, and kinda boring, so I just call it P.O.P.S.! Like I said, this is a dish from my childhood that I love and think of fondly, but when I made it for myself the first time I was mildly disappointed. Not because it wasn’t good, but because as I’ve gotten older, and learned to cook, my pallet has changed. I’ve grown accustomed to lot’s of flavor built directly into a dish. Flavors that compliment and play off each other and while I’ll always look back fondly on her basic version of this dish, I couldn’t stop myself from modifying the recipe just a little bit.
While I left the entirety of the original ingredients list intact, I added quite a few things to really bring this dish to life! I’ll take a moment here to pat myself on the back, because this recipe is SO EASY yet SO DELICIOUS! It’s the perfect meal for a cold night when you just need something easy and stress free to make. It will literally warm your belly!
So, what did I add to make this recipe better than the original?
Mom’s recipe was exactly as the name implies. Throw some peppers, onions, potatoes and sausages in a casserole pan and bake until everything is cooked and the potatoes are soft. I mean you really can’t go wrong with those ingredients, and it is good just like that, but it’s not GREAT! I would always find myself loading it with salt and pepper to get some flavor out of anything but the sausage. So the first thing I added directly to the dish was some salt and pepper. Next I added some fresh garlic, a tiny bit of scotch bonnet pepper, some salted butter, and topped it of with some brown sugar. MMMMMMMMMMMMMM now we’re getting somewhere! The garlic and butter really add a ton of flavor, the salt and pepper bring the vegetables to life, and the scotch bonnet and brown sugar play off each other to add this warm sweetness that makes you keep going back for more even though you know you’ll regret it. So let’s jump in to Part Two of our recipe road series and teach you how to make this amazing dish!
Recipe Road #2
This recipe is the second stepping stone in our Recipe Road series designed to teach anyone how to cook and build their skills in the kitchen. We chose this recipe to be next based on the fact that it’s a very simply recipe that only requires the most basic skills and equipment to cook. This recipe will help us hone our knife skills, get us comfortable working with multiple ingredients, and give us some practice cooking in the oven.
First things first. Let’s get out all or our equipment and supplies. For this recipe, you will need the following: 1ea Aluminum Casserole or Lasagna pan with deep sides preferably 13-1/4 x 9-5/8 x 2-3/4, a cutting board, an 8″ chefs knife, and piece of parchment paper about the size of your cutting board. If you don’t have chefs knife here is the one I recommend:
Tramontina Pro-Series 8 inch Kitchen Chefs Knife
It’s $8 at your local Walmart. This is a great knife for a bargain price and I have 2 of them in my kitchen. They sharpen and hold an edge well, have a plastic handle that’s dishwasher safe, and if it get’s beat up then oh well, it was only eight bucks.
In the instructions below I give pretty detailed instructions on how to cut up each vegetable and the sizes they should be cut to. Believe it or not this is the most important part of the entire recipe.
It’s crucial to get the sizes correct because we’re going to cook all of the ingredients together at the same time. If you cut things too small, they will be overcooked and if too big they will be undercooked. Onions cook faster than peppers, which cook faster than sausage, which cook faster than potatoes. One way we can compensate for this is to size the pieces of the ingredients properly. We’ll cut the onions into the largest pieces, then we’ll cut the peppers a little bit smaller, the sausage a bit smaller than that and the potatoes a bit smaller than the sausage. Hopefully that makes sense to you all.
Key Idea– Size Matters! Cutting your ingredients into the right sizes is important when you’re trying to cook everything together in one pan so that everything cooks thoroughly but not too much.
Ok, let’s get to Cooking!
Some tips and tricks to make this recipe go nice and easy!
- Read all the instructions and get everything you need before you start.
- Pay attention to the sizes of the vegetables referenced in the instructions. If you don’t have a ruler handy here are some handy comparisons: 1/2″(12.7mm) is about width of a AA Battery, 3/4″(19mm) is about the size of US Penny and 1″ (25.4mm) is about the size of a US Quarter.
- Peel and cut the potatoes after you cut all of the other vegetables. If they sit out in the air too long they’ll start to oxidize and turn brown 🙁
- Make sure your casserole pan is at least 2-3/4″ deep. I highly recommend doing this in a throw away aluminum one just because they are deeper than most standard glass dishes. If you have to use a glass one, you’ll want to combine and mix everything together in a very large bowl before putting it in the dish.
- Don’t be afraid to let it cook! If you check it and the potatoes aren’t soft but everything is ready then this is good clue that you cut the potatoes too big. No big deal, just just put it back in the oven for another 15 mins and remember to cut them a bit smaller next time.
I hope you and your loved ones enjoy this meal as much as my family and I do. It makes me happy to be able to pass along a bit of Murphy family tradition!
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a fast, easy meal to make?
The answer to this is in two parts. Yes it is very easy to make. It is fast to prepare ~30mins. However, it’s slow to cook. This dish needs over an hour in the oven.
I don’t like spicy food, is this meal spicy hot?
No. There is just enough hot pepper in it to give it some flavor and warm you up. Scotch Bonnet peppers are know for their incredible flavor profile and are definitely spicy, but by adding just a little bit, you will mostly get just the flavor. My kids all love this meal and have never once complained about it being spicy.
Can I make this meal the day before?
Absolutely, but you’ll want to cook it the day before too, and then just reheat it in the oven @350° for ~30mins.
Can I use regular Italian sausages if I can’t find loose sausage?
Absolutely. In fact that is what I always did until my local grocery store started carrying the loose sausage. Just slice the casing down the side with a nice sharp knife and pull the loose sausage out.
Can I substitute the sausage for something else?
You can, although I don’t really recommend it. The sausage adds a lot of flavor to the dish and compliments the vegetables nicely. If you absolutely have to substitute you will probably have to modify how you cook the dish. For example, if you wanted to substitute ground beef into the recipe you would want to brown it up in a skillet first and then add it in during the last 20 mins of baking.
P.O.P.S. Casserole
Description
Full Ingredients
Instructions
Prep Instructions
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Prep the Peppers
Wash the peppers under cool water to remove any dirt, bacteria and pesticides. Then stand them up on the cutting board and looking down at the stem of the pepper cut it in half, then half again so that we have four roughly equal pieces. Remove all of the seeds and white pulp from the insides of the pieces and cut away any left over stem. If there are any seeds stuck inside rinse them under cool water again to get them out of there. Now slice each piece the long way into roughly 3/4" wide slices. Then slice them across into roughly 3/4" squares. Go ahead and toss all the peppers into your casserole pan.
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Prep the Onions
Cut both the ends off of your onion or onions if you have more than one. Stand it up on the cutting board so you're looking down at the top of the onion and then cut it in half and then half again so you have four quarters. Peel away the dry outer skin off each piece. If your onion is very large you'll want to cut each quarter into 1" wide slices in the same direction that you quartered it. You'll end up with wedge shaped pieces but you want the outside of the wedge to be ~ 1". Lay the wedges down and cut them at ~1" intervals across so you end up with 1" long pieces of varying sizes. Toss the onions in the casserole pan and separate them apart with your hands.
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Prep the Potatoes
Wash and peel the potatoes. Cut them into 1/2" wide slices the long way down the potato. Then cut those into 1/2" wide strips. You should have what look like giant french fries. Then cut those strips across into 1/2" cubes. Toss them into the casserole pan and mix them up with the peppers and onions.
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Prep the Sausage
If you have loose sausage great! If not you'll want to slice the casing open on your sausages and remove the casing. Put a bit of oil down on your cutting board and rub it around, place the sausage on top and apply some more oil to the sausage. Then cover it in a piece of parchment paper and, using your hands, squish it down into a flat, even layer about 1/4" thick, or about the thickness of a #2 pencil. Then slice it into 3/4" wide strips. Add 2 TBS of oil to the casserole dish and mix it around really well with your hands. Leave any oil residue on your hands, this will keep the sausage from sticking to them. Pick up a strip of sausage, tear off about 3/4" and squish it into a little ball and toss it into the casserole pan. Once you have a 10-12 pieces in there, mix up the casserole pan. If anything starts sticking together add some more oil. Continue until all the sausage is in the pan and everything is mixed up nicely.
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Prep the Garlic
Cut each end off the garlic cloves and them down the middle the long way. Peel away the skin from each half. Lay the blade of your chef's knife flat on top of each piece (one at a time) and give it a good SMASH with the heel of your palm. Then chop it finely across the direction that it split. Add the garlic to the casserole pan, spreading it around evenly and then mix it in.
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Prep the Scotch Bonnet
Scotch Bonnet's can be quite hot, in fact they are very similar to the Habanero Pepper but have much more flavor in my opinion and have more of a belly warming heat than a melt your face off heat. Still, you may want to wear nitrile gloves if you have them as the capsaicin can linger on your skin and irritate your eyes or sensitive skin even after you wash your hands. We're only going to use a TINY bit here. Lay the pepper on it's side and slice off the tip of the root end (opposite the stem) and discard. Then cut 4-5 very thin slices off the pepper. I mean VERY THIN, as thin as you can. Lay these slices down and dice them into tiny pieces and add them to the casserole dish. Then cut the remaining pepper open and pick out 5 seeds and add them to the casserole dish as well.
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Finishing Touches
Add the salt and pepper and mix everything together one last time. Cut the butter into slabs and layer it around the top of the dish. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the top of everything and THAT'S IT! DONE!
Cooking Instructions
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Preheat
Preheat your oven to 375°F. Make sure your oven rack is in the middle position. Cover the dish with tinfoil and seal it tightly around the edges.
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Baking
Bake the dish covered for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and poke the potatoes with a fork. They should be nice and soft. If not, re-cover and bake for another 10 minutes and check again. Once the potatoes are soft increase the oven temperature to 400°F and place dish back in the oven uncovered for another 20 minutes in total, but stopping to stir the dish after 10 minutes. When you stir it, try to get all of the browned up pieces from the top to the bottom and vice versa. This will make sure everything browns up nicely. If you have to go a little longer to get everything browned up go for it, just don't go more than 10 minutes without checking on it and stirring it.
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Wrap Up and Serving
Nothing too fancy here, just put nice big scoop on your plate and salt and pepper to taste!
Congratulations! You've completed Recipe Road Stepping Stone #2! How did it turn out? Let us know how you did in the comment's section below. You're feedback helps us, help you better.
