If you’re a Southern U.S.-er, you’re probably familiar with corn casserole, or corn pudding as some call it. It’s simply a mixture of simple, everyday style ingredients that produces a savory-sweet side dish many of us down here love. It’s easy, it can feed a decent-sized family and said family is usually glad to see it on the table. When I saw this variation it sounded way too good to resist. Plus - bacon!

This looks like an odd collection of ingredients, but they’re going to work so well. They’re going to work very well on your taste buds!

Part of the appeal about casseroles is they’re pretty much an easy dump-all-the-ingredients, stir and pour into a dish kind of effort. Unlike our usual corn casserole, this variation uses cheese in the mixture. Get in there cheese! We can’t find any fault there.

While we love to make this corn muffin mix into actual muffins to have with soups and such, it’s going into this casserole, kind of for the same reason bread or cracker crumbs do in other casseroles, and it’s also going to give the casserole that more pudding-like texture.

Just give it all a good stir till it’s fully incorporated.

There’s a topping of cooked, crumbled bacon, sliced green onions and cheddar cheese that goes onto the casserole prior to baking. A note on the cheese - if cheddar’s not your thing, you can substitute another kind or mix cheddar with another cheese, etc.

This seemed like way too generous an amount of cheese going into the topping, but afterward I was pretty pleased with the results.

Once fully baked, that beautiful mixture of cheese, green onions and BACON creates this impressive shield of pure deliciousness. It’s a really tasty accompaniment to the yummy casserole below.

I really loved this version of the corn casserole and can easily see it replacing our usual recipe. The flavor boosts from the green and red pepper corn, the ranch dressing, the cheese - the BACON! - were a big hit with everyone that tried it. It’s easy to just throw together, plop into a casserole and bake and it’s great with just about anything. Can’t wait to make it again!

Bacon-Cheddar Corn Pudding

from Kraft Family Foods magazine, Holiday 2012

Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook time: about 1 hour Level: Easy Serves: 4-6

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 can (15 oz.) cream-style corn
• 1 can (11 oz.) corn with red and green bell peppers, drained
• 1pkg. (8-1/2 oz.) corn muffin mix
• 1/2 cup KRAFT Classic Ranch Dressing
• 1 pkg. (8 oz.) KRAFT Shredded Cheddar Cheese, divided
• 4 green onions, sliced
• 4 slices cooked OSCAR MAYER Bacon, crumbled

Heat oven to 375°F.

Mix first 5 ingredients until well blended; stir in 1/2 cup cheese. Pour into 2-qt. casserole sprayed with cooking spray. Bake 40 min. Meanwhile, combine remaining cheese, onions and bacon. Top casserole with cheese mixture; bake 15 min. or until lightly browned.

Notes:

We upped the amount of cheese going into the casserole mixture to 3/4 cup, just do whatever appeals to you. There was still, as you can tell, plenty of cheese for the topping.

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