Cheesy hash brown potatoes

This past Christmas Tim and I hosted the family Christmas dinner at our house. One of the meals I had to prepared was the hash brown casserole. It's been years since I made this so I had to hunt for a good recipe. I got onto Allrecipes looking for a recipe that had great reviews. I found this recipe and then modified it a little. When I got to the store to buy the ingredients there were two types of has brown potatoes, country style which is shredded and then there are the regular hash browns which are diced...... I had no idea which type to get so I bought the shredded ones.

On Christmas Eve we went to Tim's sister's house for dinner. My sister-in-law, Lisa, made this great hash brown casserole that was delicious. Upon careful inspection I noticed that she used the dice hash browns...... I bought the wrong type of hash browns. It was too late to go out and buy the other potatoes so I just used what I had and made the casserole the next morning. To my amazement everyone loved the casserole. I told them I had used the shredded hash browns and they thought the ingredients were better blended because of it.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (2 pound) package frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed (I used shredded type)
  
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
• 1 cup finely chopped onions
• 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 cups crushed cornflakes cereal
• 1/4 cup melted butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, combine hash browns, 1/4 cup melted butter, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, chopped onion, Cheddar cheese, salt and pepper. Place mixture in a 3 quart casserole dish.
3. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, saute cornflakes in 1/4 cup melted butter, and sprinkle the mixture over the top of the casserole.
4. Bake covered in preheated oven for 40 minutes.