Many times after a funeral in the Mormon church, the family and friends of the deceased will gather at the church for a light luncheon.

This is a very standard recipe that has been used for years and is always a favorite as it smells and tastes like “comfort food”. The recipe is usually copied and given out to several sisters to make at home and then delivered to the church at the correct time so that the ladies volunteering in the kitchen can have the luncheon ready to start at the assigned time.

Funeral Potatoes

Gather these ingredients:
• 6-8 potatoes, boiled
• 1 (10 ¾ ounce) can of cream of chicken soup
• ¼ cup butter or margarine
• 1 pint of sour cream
• 1/3 cups chopped green onions
• ½ cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 2 T melted butter
• ½ cup crushed cornflakes

Follow these steps:

1. Boil the potatoes and let them cool to the point where they can be held.
2. Slice or cube the potatoes and put them into a greased 9x13 greased baking dish.
3. Mix together soup, ¼ c margarine, sour cream, onions and cheese and pout over the potatoes.
4. Combine the melted butter and the cornflakes and stir with a fork to coat the cornflakes with the butter.
5. Sprinkle the cornflakes over the top of the potatoes.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

This recipe serves 12.

Over the years we have found that you can give this recipe out to 6-8 different sisters and when the dishes are presented at the church for the luncheon they all look different and taste a bit different. It is an easy dish to be able to change it up a bit.

Some like to use chopped up red and green peppers and some like to use a different type of cheese. If a person does not have cream of chicken soup then they can substitute cream of mushroom soup or cream of celery soup. If you don’t have cornflakes it is okay to use crushed up potato chips, or even crushed pretzels. You would still need to mix the melted butter with the crushed pretzels, but could omit the melted butter if you used crushed potato chips.

I have also seen versions where they have even added chopped green chilies and used frozen hash brown potatoes instead of freshly boiled.

But no matter how this recipe is changed it still goes by the same name and still feels like “comfort”.