A sheet pan meal of fish, shrimp and smoked sausage with broccoli and potatoes.

Sheet Pan Seafood Dinner

A few years back, sheet pan dinners were all the rage.

I never quite got into them to be honest, mainly because with a mix of proteins and different varieties of vegetables, cooking stages are often involved in order to cook everything evenly and not overcook others.

A one pan meal of smoked sausage, potatoes and sweet bell peppers, tossed with simple seasonings and olive oil and topped with pats of butter.

Smoked Sausage, Peppers and Potato Bake

The combination of flavors in this dish is one of my favorites, especially when I'm not much motivated to cook, because it's such an easy dish to throw together.

This version includes a hickory smoked Conecuh sausage, tender yellow potatoes and frozen mixed peppers with onions, seasoned, tossed with extra virgin olive oil, dotted with butter and baked. It's simple, easy, tasty and super flavorful.

With green beans available year round, this green bean vegetable salad with potatoes makes for a great side dish any time of the year.

Green Bean and Potato Salad

Green beans and potatoes go together like hand and glove, and we sure do love that hot dish served in the south.

But... have you ever considered combining this classic southern mix up with a vinaigrette and serving it cold? It's actually a great combination as a cold vegetable salad, though it's also good slightly warm or at room temperature too!

Small red or yellow potatoes, tossed with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and dried herbs and roasted in the air fryer.

Air Fryer Roasted Potatoes

While I love all kinds of vegetables, my husband, aka "The Cajun," is not a big veggie eater.

He's more of a "starchy" vegetable kind of guy and specifically the classic meat and potatoes man, so potatoes make a regular appearance on the plate in this house, along with rice, because rice is a big deal in the Deep South thanks to our many rice fields.

In fact, according to Think Rice US Grown, each year American rice farmers sustainably grow roughly 20 billion pounds of rice in Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas, half of which is used domestically, and the other half exported. That's a lot of rice y'all!

But, we're talking potatoes here.

French Potato Salad - Pommes de Terre a L'huile

A cold potato salad, made with red skinned potatoes, tossed with chicken stock and white wine, dressed with a lemon and mustard olive oil vinaigrette and tossed with green onions and herbs.

French Potato Salad

One day, as I shared cookout recipes on my Facebook page, I shared my classic potato salad, a recipe that, while I do prepare other versions on occasion, is my standby recipe and most similar to the way that my Mama made potato salad. A reader commented that I really should try French potato salad sometime.

Of course, I took that as a challenge!

This sheet pan mix of roasted potatoes with loads of vegetables and smoked sausage is an easy meal that's packed with flavor.

Roasted Potatoes with Sausage and Vegetables

You may remember a near viral recipe for a simple sheet pan roasted potatoes with onions and sweet peppers flashing across social media platforms the past year or so.

I'm old enough to remember when people just made these kinds of things with little to no fanfare, but hey, if social media can drum up some interest in cooking, well, anything... I'm happy about it!

Food, after all, isn't just about nourishment, although some would have you think so.

A flavorfully seasoned boil mix to use for a smaller batch of 1 to 2 pounds of jumbo shrimp, with sausage, potatoes and corn.

Small Batch Shrimp Boil

Most shrimp boils around here are done on a back porch, in a propane boiler set up {affil link}, and on a huge scale with often at least 20 pounds of shrimp (or more), and sometimes crabs or crawfish too. Hopefully out of that, we can sneak away a pound or two of peeled shrimp for those dishes we all love that call for already cooked shrimp.

Although I've certainly pan sautéed plenty and grown quite fond of using roasted shrimp when I just need to season a pound or two of shrimp, every once in awhile, I also want those highly seasoned potatoes, corn and sausage that come along with it. Enter the small batch version of my shrimp boil!

 

Skillet fried potatoes, cooked with Italian, breakfast or turkey sausage, veggies, plenty of garlic and fresh or canned tomatoes.

Sausage and Garlic Potatoes

Okay, right up front, I reckon this isn't the prettiest picture, and I'm sure, due to the nature of the internet, somebody is gonna feel free to let me know that.

Truth is, you and I know that a lot of the best tasting foods aren't necessarily the most photogenic.

As a person with a blog of recipes, some are a little difficult to "style," and photography is not exactly my talent anyway. I'm a pretty decent cook, but not that great with food styling.

Have you seen my mandarin orange fruit salad, aka to many of you as ambrosia salad? There is no way to make that dish look good, but man is it delicious!

After the Boil Seafood Potato Salad

 

A potato salad, made with leftovers from a seafood boil, using highly seasoned red-skinned potatoes, shrimp, crawfish and crab. Shown here with fried catfish and collards If you didn't have a boil, no worries - you can still make it!

Seafood Potato Salad

What some areas of the country refer to as Frogmore Stew or "low country boils," are simply called seafood boils here in the Deep South, and they might involve shrimp, crawfish or crabs. With access to the best seafood, boils are actually a favorite addition to summer cookouts here along the Gulf Coast, and certainly one of my favorite parties to attend. If there's a boil-master manning a massive outdoor cooker that's loaded with Gulf seafood, I'm definitely in!

These potatoes are the perfect accompaniment to many main dish meats, poultry or pork dishes. Tossed in a mixture of herbs, butter and olive oil, and onion seasoning, roasted on a sheet pan, and deglazed with broth for a tasty finishing sauce.

Sheet Pan Onion Roasted Potatoes

I believe that onion roasted potatoes have been around at least as long as I have. They are a great side for just about any beef, pork or chicken entree and besides being a fantastic way to transform plain potatoes, they are also always well received.

I make mine just a tad bit different, adding a little more herbs and seasonings, along with the classic onion soup mix that made these famous, which by the way, if you happen to object to using, there are hundreds of copycat recipes on the internet you can use to make a homemade version, including mine that is included below. I also like to borrow from a classic dish called pommes fondantes ("melting potatoes"), deglazing the potatoes with chicken broth to turn that base into a nice finishing sauce.

This is my Deep South take on classic German Potato Salad, made with a warm bacon dressing, including our Holy Trinity of Southern cooking, along with pickles and juice, sugar, mustard, horseradish, hot sauce and black pepper. Best served warm or at room temperature.

Deep South Style German Potato Salad

We love our Classic Southern Style Potato Salad here in The South, but German Potato Salad is a popular Southern favorite too. I make no claims to the authenticity of this version, but with the inclusion of our Deep South Holy Trinity of Southern cooking, mine is a Deep South take on this classic favorite. Not only is it the perfect potato salad for our sweet and sour Southern palates, it's a great potluck, picnic and church supper dish too.

Butter stewed potatoes, are whole new potatoes or small, cut up red potatoes, steam cooked in butter and often sprinkled with herbs, such as parsley.

Butter Steamed New Potatoes

No secret here that I love potatoes I suppose. Seriously, set a pot of stewed potatoes in front of me and I'm perfectly happy to enjoy them as my meal.

O'Brien Style Cast Iron Skillet Fried Potatoes

Red skin potatoes are fried up in a cast iron skillet with sweet Vidalia onion and bell pepper and nicely seasoned for a take on Potatoes O'Brien. Great for any meal - add bacon, ham, sausage, fresh herbs and mushrooms if you like!

Potatoes O'Brien - Skillet Fried Potatoes

Skillet fried potatoes, also known as home fries and cottage fries in the north, are such an easy side dish, that goes well with breakfast, but also as a dinner side dish. For my classic skillet potatoes I use peeled russets, some onion and that's about it other than the delicious fat used to cook them in - for me, I love using bacon drippings for the extra richness it provides - and the very specific method.

For this version of skillet potato, I prefer to use the smaller, unpeeled red-skinned or new potatoes. The skin is tender, and to me tasty, and they cook up nicely without the steaming process that is necessary for our beloved fried taters and onion. If you prefer to use a russet, rather than a red skinned potato, you certainly can, though I'd click over to that other recipe, because I think that method works best with russets.

A wonderful potato casserole featuring russet potatoes, cheese, sour cream, and Rotel diced tomatoes, plus optional garnishes of tomato, avocado, green onion, bacon and additional sour cream.

Velveeta Truck Stop Potato Casserole

Truck Stop Potatoes apparently originated at an Idaho truck stop as a breakfast side dish and was picked up at some point by a caterer who may have come up with the idea of the garnishes.

Mine is a little bit different from the traditional recipe which uses red potatoes (though you may substitute those here too of course), a combination of cheddar and monterey jack cheeses, plain diced tomatoes and garnishes with extra tomatoes, avocados, green onion and extra sour cream.

 

  Small red potatoes are first baked, then chopped or sliced and tossed with bacon and onion in a mayonnaise, vinegar and ranch dressing seasoning.

Bacon Ranch Cold Baked Potato Salad

I've already shared my just-like-Mama's southern style no-frills simple potato salad but this one here is also a big favorite of mine.

Initially, this was my attempt to duplicate a potato salad served at one of our local favorite barbecue hangouts, but since writing the recipe, they've changed their version which has no eggs, is much whiter in color and seems to be heavy in sour cream and mayonnaise.

These pan roasted potatoes are a delicious change from the everyday. Simply slice, sprinkle with salt and pepper and your favorite herb, top with Parmesan cheese, cover and bake!

Pan Roasted Rosemary Parmesan Potatoes

A simple but delicious potato side dish that is another one of my favorite ways to serve potatoes. Salt and pepper are a good start, even seasoning salt (I really love Jane's Krazy) {affil link}, but after that feel free to get adventurous with your favorite herbs and seasonings.

Easy to throw together and bakes quickly since they are sliced thin. I highly recommend using a slicer {affil link} - it's easier, it's faster, and the slices are uniformly even for better cooking. Both The Cajun and I love these potatoes. I could literally eat these as a meal!