Pinterest Inspired Recipe: Loaded Baked Potato & Buffalo Chicken Casserole

My favorite part of Meal Planning and cooking more has to 

be trying new recipes! 

Most of which I find on Pinterest. 

 How did we cook before Pinterest? 

I never found good recipes like this in my recipe books.

Being a huge fan of easy and not a ton of ingredients,

the recipe I am going to share with you was amazing!

Loaded Baked Potato & Buffalo Chicken  Casserole

I will of course give credit where it is due, I found this recipe here.

However, I changed it up so my toddler would eat it

 so I will tell you exactly what I did.

Ingredients: 

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into small bit size pieces

8-10 medium potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes  (I peeled the potatoes)

1/3 cup olive oil 

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 TBS. freshly ground pepper

1 TBS. paprika 

2 TBS. garlic powder 

3 TBS. hot sauce 

Topping:

2 cup Fiesta Blend Cheese or a mix of Cheddar & Monterey Jack

1 cup crumbled bacon
1 cup diced green onion

Preheat oven to 500F (This is NOT a typo, 500F is correct!)  
In a large bowl mix together the olive oil, 
salt, pepper,  paprika, garlic powder & hot sauce. 
Add the cubed potatoes and stir to coat. 
Carefully scoop the potatoes into a cooking spray coated 9 x 13 inch baking dish,
leaving behind as much of the olive oil/hot sauce mix as possible. 
 Bake the potatoes for 45-50 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes,
until cooked through and crispy & browned on the outside.  
While the potatoes are cooking, add the cubed chicken to the bowl
with the leftover olive oil/hot sauce mix and stir to coat.  

Once the potatoes are fully cooked, 
remove from the oven and lower the oven temperature to 400F.  
Top the cooked potatoes with the raw marinated chicken. 
In a bowl mix together the cheese, bacon & green onion
and top the raw chicken with the cheese mix. 
 Return the casserole to the oven and bake for 15 minutes or 
until the chicken is cooked through and the topping is bubbly delicious.  
Serve with extra hot sauce and/or ranch dressing.

This turned out just as awesome as it sounds and we loved it.
Already saved as one of our go to favorites.
Hope you enjoy it as much as we did and thanks to Pinterest
for allowing me to find this gem! 

Bon Appétit,
Ashley