Cheese and Potato Pie, Childhood Memories!
Cheese and potato pie was ever-present on the school dinner menu as well as at home; it is essentially a cheesy mash bake, and it is awesome!
It's not refined in the slightest; it's a baked cheesy mash with a little onion, a cheesy topping, and some tomato, which is completely optional.
Cheese and Potato Bake
The sight of cheese and tattie pie on the school dinner menu or my Mom talking about it being for dinner would have filled me with delight growing up!
For some strange reason, it is a recipe that kinda slipped from my consciousness over the years. Working on my cheese and onion pie and cheese and onion pasty rekindled a load of memories, and I had to give it an itch!
It joins other childhood favourites like spam fritters, gammon, egg and chips, homemade crispy pancakes, savoury mince beef, canned corned beef hash and liver and onions, yes, I loved liver as a kid!
The cheese and potato pie I grew up with featured no pastry and no filling.
Many people use something similar to top shepherds pie or cottage pie. But as far as I am concerned, that is just wrong!
But it is still a pie, and we Brits are perfectly comfortable with being "liberal" with our food names. If you ever find yourself in rural Hungary, buy me a beer and let me explain British puddings to you!
I digress, cheese & potato pie is essentially a cheesy mashed potato bake. My US readers would probably call it a "casserole".
I call it comfort food heaven, and it's super easy to make because you do not have to mess around with pastry.
If cheese is your thing, you must check out my chicken parmo recipe! An incredibly indulgent dish of a fried breaded chicken breast covered in bechamel sauce and cheese.
Frequently Asked Questions
What sort of potatoes should I use?
This recipe is as simple as it gets! It is essentially a cheesy mash, but don't tell anyone I said that!
As with all mashed potato recipes you need floury or mealy potatoes, as my US readers would call them.
You are looking for something like King Edward, Maris Piper, Russet or Idaho.
What sort of cheese should I use?
For me, it has to be a nice, sharp, mature cheddar cheese. I have experimented with both Wensleydale and Cheshire cheese; both are pleasing in this dish, but not quite as satisfying as cheddar!
Good cheddar should have a firm texture and not be spongy.
It should be creamy but crumbly all at the same time. Most importantly, it should scream savoury with just the slightest hint of sweetness.
Can I make this in advance?
Yes, you can build this dish and place it in the fridge for 2-3 days covered with film and then bake it when you are ready.
I personally do not like freezing mashed potatoes, and that goes for this recipe too.
Do I have to use English mustard?
No, you can omit the mustard or scale it back to something a little less "pokey" if you wish. Anything from German or American mustard to Dijon or even wholegrain mustard is fine.
Serving Suggestions
Growing up this would usually be served as a main course with peas and loads of tomato ketchup.
This recipe will serve 2 as a main and 4 as a side dish. Although I reckon I would eat it all myself if left to my own devices!
I usually serve it as an indulgent side dish, and it usually gets trotted out when I make my homemade sausages.
Just to ramp up the Britishness, I tend to serve it with baked beans too!
But it is also superb with baked beans, so good in fact that it was the seed of the idea behind my fish finger pie!
But if you wanted to get all wrapped up in some serious bean cooking, then these baked beans with bacon sound incredible.
Equipment Used
I only name-check brands of equipment if I think that they make a material difference to a dish. But if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section below the recipe.
- Hob/Stovetop.
- Oven.
- 20cm or 8" saucepan.
- 500-600ml (2 cup capacity) baking dish.
- Chopping board.
- Kitchen knife.
- Potato ricer or masher.
- Mixing bowl.
- Colander.
- A combination of weighing scales, a measuring jug, measuring cups and spoons.
Cheese and Potato Pie Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 Small-Medium Potatoes 400g
- 75 g Butter ¼ Cup + 1 Tbsp
- 1½ tablespoon English Mustard
- 150 g Mature Cheddar Cheese 1½ Cups
- 1 Small Onion 75g
- 1 Egg
- 1 tablespoon Milk
- 1 Medium Tomato
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Bring a 20cm or 8" saucepan of well-salted water to the boil. I use 1 teaspoon of salt in a pan this size.Add in the potatoes whole and unpeeled, and boil until cooked; this should take around 30-35 minutes.
- Halfway through cooking the potatoes, peel the onion and drop it into the pan.
- Roughly chop the onion.
- Drain the potatoes, prick them with a fork and peel off the skin. Then mash the potatoes or pass them through a potato ricer.
- Add the butter and onion, then mix to combine.
- Add the cheese, beaten egg, milk, and mustard to the mash, then mix well; you should have quite a "wet" mash.
- Place the mash into a greased or buttered casserole dish (around 0.5 litres in size) and top with the remaining cheese.
- Slice the tomato into 3-4mm (⅛-¼) thick slices and add them to the top of the mash.
- Bake in an oven at 200°C or 400°F for 15-20 minutes.
We were from Wales ( but originally Durham mining villages)
We used to have tinned tomatoes with I to
Nowadays I have a nice slice of ham and sliced beetroot - delicious
GP
Noooooo, beetroot... my wife puts beetroot with this and I always giver her the side-eye lol... to be fair, I'd love this with tinned tomatoes and a splash of Worcestershire sauce, but I suspect my wife would give me a similar side-eye 😀
Brian 🙂
This looks like a great potato side dish to go with Cumberland sausage but maybe you could clarify something for me — do you use bottled or dry powder English Mustard in your recipes ?
Hi Robin, my Mom would always serve this as our main tea, but I love it with sausages, oh the indulgence lol.
I always refer to powdered mustard as powdered, if it is not listed as powdered you can consider it to be jarred/bottled 🙂
All the best
Brian
Good recipe well detailed
I am making it tonight for tea. Will have it with baked beans as we always do. Coming home from school the smell, we knew we were in for a treat. This would be early 50’s in London.
I love this recipe, I think you are the first person outside of the Midlands that has responded to this recipe that has said that it was part of their childhood. Which makes me very happy indeed.
Brian 🙂
Have just made this but added a leek as well. Takes me back to my school days un the 70's when we made this in a cookery lesson. Im in northamptonshire and used red Leicester cheese and a vintage white cheddar. Thanks for sharing this winter warmer comfort dish .
I had a hankering for this and so glad I came across your recipe. This was a staple growing up in the late 70’s, early 80’s. It was usually on our plate with gammon and green beans. Born and bred in Dorset, so it did make its was down south!
Awesome, someone other than the Midlands, chiming in on this 😀 I'm very glad you enjoyed this and that I could chime in on a few childhood food memories.
Brian 🙂
I had this dish once at a barbecue in Texas in like 2014. It was unusual to me as an American and delicious! The girl who made it told me it was an English recipe. I've always remembered but just now decided to search for a recipe and bake it myself this week. I'm so happy I found one.
It's very much British "homestyle" food from a specific part of the country, if you scroll through the comments you will notice that most of the people have some sort of association with the British Midlands... glad you found it hanging out in Texas, it's rpetty basic cooking but it is delicious and a huge slice of my childhood 😁
Enjoy
Brian
I used to love this as a child. I'm from the West Midlands, not that I think this has any bearing on how to serve the pie. My mom served it with home made parsley sauce and peas, I still serve it that way, and still love it as much as when I was a child. Real comfort food.
Oooo you were posh lol 🤣 the only time that I saw parsley sauce growing up was on them frozen cod in parsley sauce dinners, and they were only for grown ups!
Sounds delicious though, especially with sweet peas, love it 😁
This definitely seems to be a Midlands thing, I was chatting with my aunt and uncle just before Christmas and my uncle (from the North East) had never heard of it (neither had my wife who is from the North West) and he was very confused, my aunt shared my love for it.
All the best.
Brian
My mum always made us this dish she called it cheese goulash. We always had it with bread and butter and tomato sauce. (Just the cheesy mash nothing else addded) We made sandwiches with it. Delicious 😋 I still make it now one of our favourite comfort foods. We are from the midlands.
Awesome, that's a name that I've not come across, I completely forgot about piling this into bread and dipping the sarnie into baked beans... magic memories 😀
Is the English mustard in the recipe in powder form or made up please?
MORE RECIPES PLEASE!!!!
Lovely throwback to when I was small growing up in the UK.... Vegan now though... Why do you use the egg in the recipe... Can I use a flax egg instead?
Glad to bring back some memories, the egg changes up the texture a little and enriches the mash, I've never tried any egg substitutions... but my Mom never used egg in hers, my Nan always did though, so you could skip it.
But if you did try the egg substitution, please let me know how it goes, I'm always interested in vegan/vegetarian substitutions people use in my recipes 🙂
All the best.
Brian
Had this as a child, and my girls have grown up with it too. Pure comfort food. Eating it now, googled to see if anyone else knew about it, as I don't know of anyone personally.
Hey H... This recipe is a curious one, it seems to be very Midlands centric, most of the people that have commented on it are either form the Birmingham/Black country are or have families with links to that area, my wife is form Lancashire and she had never heard of it before we met.
Enjoy the retro food memories.
Brian
I make this often but fry the onions with bacon and mushrooms in butter, add them to the mashed potato and cheese and grate a shed load of cheese on top. I grill the cheese until crispy and serve with whatever I have on hand, sausage and beans or corned beef fritters are favourites
Ain't it magic, proper school dinner nostalgia.
We were taught in cooking class in high school, in the early 90's, a similar dish, and it was called 'sausage and bean bake' Cook sausages, place in an ovenproof dish, pour over a can of baked beans, then put cheesy mash on top and bake it for about 30 minutes!
That sounds awesome and verry similar to fun a fish finger "pie" recipe that I have on my site 😀
OMG Brian, talk about nostalgia, this really is going too take me back in time.
This is a dish that I would crave has a kid, and I would deffo be going back up for seconds at school.
I recall the days of getting back from school walking up the entry of our terraced house and the smell of Cheese and Potato Pie wafting in my face, even on a hot summers day I would want to scoff the lot.
So I had my school dinner version, my mums version, then my grans version, then my best mates mums version...
Grans version, only used leeks instead of onions, always served with sausages and no toms on top of the pie.
School dinner version, was very basic (but still very nice) it would depend on what dinner lady cooked it, but you knew you would 100% be getting spam fritters with it and baked beans.
Mums version, leeks & onions, toms on top, lots of mustard but not too strong, a real heavy topping of cheese that would crunch when you chopped into it, with a side of spam fritters and baked beans or sometimes just baked beans.
Best mates mums version, so my mates mum was Spanish, in the bottom of the glass dish would be, minced beef with onions, topped with a layer of plum tomatoes and I think some red peppers, with probably some paprika dashing about, the topping was the same has most cheese and potato pies but just more toms on top.
The whole dish had a hint heat but not too spicey or over powering.
She would always serve a side of greens with it.
Not sure how she did it but the mash would never get soggy from the juices at the bottom of the dish.
All of the above used a strong Red Leicester Cheese has that's a midlands thing.
I'm really looking forward at giving your recipe a go.
Hey Jonny...
Glad this recipe triggers memories, this is wee slice of nostalgia is the most popular recipe on my site, probably for that reason... childhood food memories are awesome and I love them.
Like you there were so many memories of this growing up, this is a bit of a mash up between my Nans and my Moms version with a liberal sprinkling of grown up me 😉
Your Spanish mates Mom's version sounds awesome 😀
I'm a Brummie and loads of my friends parents used Red Leicester but I was bought up with sharp cheddar, I think my Mom used to get loads of it from her brother who was a butcher and it was always really sharp and crumbly.
Enjoy.
Brian
I had forgotten about this favourite. Born and raised near Bath, lived for 5 years in Nairobi (all as a child/teenager) and have been in Canada for 40 plus years. Still love my British food! Thanks for this
Hi Brian, I am so glad I came across your site. Cheese and potato pie, and spam fritters are food of the gods! I shall be making the cheese and potato pie for dinner this evening for the family as a side to accompany pork shoulder steaks and greens.
Glad that you've found me Janie, I live a bit of food nostalgia from my childhood 🙂
Hi Brian, I’m planning on making this recipe however just wanted to know what type of milk did you use? Also was the English mustard “dried English mustard”? Thanks!
Hi Lib... it's regular milk and I use prepared English mustard.
I made this from a school recipe 35 years ago, my mum said a very pared back recipe my Nan in London had when she was a kid! I like it with baked. Rans, and mine had bacon in it as well.
Cheese pie was one of my favourites as a kid and i still make it as an adult , mum taught us to layer the cheese in the potato and serve with beans, corned beef and Tommy sauce. I'm sure it started out that it was a way to get us kids to eat onions too, but it doesn't taste right without them. I used yo thunk it was a made up dish by my mum, but so pleased to see so many others love it too 😁
I think we all have that kinda thought, I was chatting with my aunt last weekend and she was talking about cheese and potato pie and how her Mom (my gran) made it for her, she still waxes lyrical about it being her favourite dinner from her childhood.
Out of interest, which part of the country are you from? Most people that know this seem to come from a band across the centre of the UK, from North Wales across the Midlands and out towards Leicester and Peterborough (I'm a Brummie). My wife who is a Lancashire lass had never heard of it, and neither have my friends from north or south of that corridor.
@Brian Jones, my husband never heard of it , I’m near brum and he’s from Chester
Cheers Tamie, that kinda chimes with everything else I have heard too!
Love this recipe. Having it with salmon and spinach tonight for tea yum yum.
Lovely, enjoy 🙂
Brian
My Dad used to make this for us (without the onion - he would use scallion greens). Always served just with Baked Beans (cooked with a knob of butter and ground black pepper)... This simple dish is still one of my very favourites; warming, filling, tasty, and so nostalgic. Heaven!
It's food heaven for me too, my wife had never heard of it and I am getting very "regional" vibes form this dish... where are you from Ricardo?
My Dad used to make it for me as well without the onions, I have always loved his meals and I think you feel the same way. It is so enjoyable to have!
A little too much mustard but other then that, it was a big winner with the kids . Thanks for sharing
Glad you enjoyed it Lucy 🙂
Hi Brian,
This looks amazing! Thinking of serving with gammon for a Sunday lunch - can it be made a day ahead and then refrigerated? Just to cut down on work on the day?!
Thank you
Hey Helen. I've had this with all sorts and never considered pairing it with gammon, but it would be awesome!
Yes, this is absolutely fine in the fridge for a few days, I quite often make a really large one and have it over 2 or 3 days as a side.
Enjoy
Brian
Can this be made without the onion. I really don’t like bits of onion in my food but everywhere I see this recipe it has onion in it.
Hey Tracey... yes, of course! I swear that my Mom added the onion like this to get me to eat onion as a kid and I have kept it cooked like this to this date. Boiling the onion makes it go very soft so not as noticeable but if it really ain't for you then leave it out.
You could omit the onion completely but if you are ok with a little hint but not the "bits" then add it (whole but peeled) to the potatoes as they are cooking from the start and discard it before mashing the spuds.
Enjoy.
Brian
This was absolutely delicious. I was looking for a yummy,comforting yet simple recipe of my most favourite childhood dinner and your one is most certainly the bomb! I will be keeping the recipe. Thank you so much 🥰
You are welcome Rachi... I love this recipe for all of those reasons, childhood food memories are so powerful, I'm glad this one hits the right tone 🙂
So great to see this! Mum used to make something similar, with three ingredients only. They were mashed potatoes, grated onions and Red Leicester cheese. Utterly fabulous. She saved a lot of cheese for the topping, which made all the difference. We ate it with brown sauce. These days, I use the same ingredients, with a little almond milk and some sliced tomatoes on top as a topping for veggie pies. Thanks for posting!
You are more than welcome Karen... food memories are incredibly powerful for many people no matter how simple the recipe. I'm blown away by the number of people that write to me on social media saying how much this reminds them of their childhood, it makes me very happy.
Your Mums sounds very much like my Moms, although I would always complain about the grated onion... odd really, as now I'd be happy to eat an onion like an apple, my cooking and mellowing of the onion is definitely an ode to me complaining about the onion my Mom would often use 😀
Loved this at school, we had it with tinned tomatoes...always went back for seconds, if there were any.
This was always popular at school, no chance of seconds... but it was always beans for me 🙂
Oh this is THE best comfort food! My mum used to cook this when I was a kid and it had kind of slipped off the radar...no idea why because it's delicious! Thanks for putting it back on my menu!
Oh, and peas and tinned plum tomatoes work a treat with this haha.
Thanks Leanne, what this lacks in gastronomic finesse it certainly makes up for in childhood food nostalgia and I love it for that 🙂
Can this fish be frozen?
Hi Nikki, not sure what fish you are referring to, this is cheese and potato pie. Let me know which recipe and I will get back to you 🙂
@Brian Jones, the F key is next to the D key, she probably meant to type. Dish rather than Fish lol
Well, don't I feel silly now Bobbstard 😀
@Nikki yes this will freeze although I am personally not a fan of freezing mashed potato because it messes with the texture when it is reheated. Make sure you wrap it well and defrost it before reheating and then gently reheat rather than doing it in a hot oven.
Looks amazing, gonna give that a try this week, thanks I'll let you know how it goes
Enjoy 🙂
@Brian Jones, hi Brian, lost the original post but found it again, this pie was amazing, thanks so much for the recipe, it took me straight back to my childhood as others have already said, I've tried different spices in it and those too was fabulous, I saw the post from Nikki too and I froze mine so I could use it for work few wks in a row, I added some beans and sausages from tins, ( u know the sort lol), I cut the sausages in halves and it was great, warmed through in microwave and I thought it was fine, done it several times now even with chilli flakes, once again thank you very much Brian, eternally grateful, Tony
Superb, I loved those beans and sausages as a kid and now might have to make it again just so that I can have some 😀
For us Hungarians brings back “rakott krumpli” childhood memories. To give it enough moisture my mom used to put tejföl not only on top of it but between the layers too.
I do that with my rakott krumpli too, I also add an egg yolk to the tejföl to give it a nice shiny glaze.
That looks wonderful. Printing it off and subscribed to Cinnamon and Coriander you linked to. Looks like an interesting site.
Thanks Sue... Enjoy 🙂
@Brian Jones, hey can I ask why the skins need to be kept on please does it change the taste of the potatoes?!
I do this because I find it the easiest way to peel potatoes, and keep most of the potato and reduce waste. If you want to peel them then go for it, you can even blast them in the microwave or roast them in the oven or air fryer and scoop out the inside. That way you get some skins to stuff with goodies later 🙂