Green Bean Casserole from Scratch
The 1955 test-kitchen classic rebuilt from scratch: blanched fresh green beans in a homemade mushroom cream sauce, under buttered bread crumbs and crispy fried onions, baked hot until bubbling.
Edited by JP Lambiase
Change the estimate
Swaps change the price only: cook any meat to its own safe temperature. Where these numbers come from
Green bean casserole was born as a convenience recipe. Wikipedia says Dorcas Reilly created it in 1955 in the Campbell Soup Company's home economics department in Camden, New Jersey, for an Associated Press feature that wanted a quick dish made from things most households had on hand; it was first printed on soup cans as "Green Bean Bake," it did not test well inside the company at first, and it became a Thanksgiving staple in the 1960s once the recipe went on the label. In November 2002 Reilly gave the original recipe card to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, and she died on October 15, 2018, at 92 (Wikipedia). In 2020 Campbell's estimated the dish was served at 20 million American Thanksgiving dinners a year and that 40% of its cream of mushroom soup sales went into it (Wikipedia). The version here keeps the idea and replaces the cans: America's Test Kitchen found that fresh beans were necessary and built its sauce like a French velouté, from mushrooms, broth and cream.
🇺🇸 This one is American
The 1955 test-kitchen classic rebuilt from scratch: blanched fresh green beans in a homemade mushroom cream sauce, under buttered bread crumbs and crispy fried onions, baked hot until bubbling.
🇺🇸 The original
The original is succotash: corn and beans cooked together, the Three Sisters of Native American farming with squash beside them. See the Three Sisters Succotash recipe.
📖 Origin story: Where Did Parker House Rolls Come From? → 📖 Origin story: Who Invented Green Bean Casserole? →
Why it works the kitchen science
Blanch and shock
A short boil followed by ice water sets the bright green color and cooks every bean to the same crisp-tender point before the oven, so the beans don't go gray or squeaky (ATK).
A real mushroom sauce
Browning a full pound of mushrooms and reducing broth and cream gives deeper flavor than condensed soup, and the flour keeps it creamy, not runny (ATK).
🧰 You'll need 10 items
Everything the steps call for. Tick off what you have before you start.
Appliances
Pans and pots
Tools
Supplies
Step by step
- Step 1
Pulse the bread, softened butter, salt and pepper in a food processor about 10 times, to coarse crumbs. Toss with the fried onions in a bowl and set aside.
- Step 2
Heat the oven to 425°F with a rack in the middle. Line a baking sheet with paper towels and fill a large bowl halfway with ice water.
- Step 3
Bring 4 quarts of water and 2 tbsp salt to a boil in a Dutch oven. Add the beans and cook about 6 minutes, until bright green and crisp-tender. Move them to the ice water, drain, and spread them on the towels to dry.
- Step 4
Dry the pot and melt the 3 tbsp butter over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms, garlic, salt and pepper and cook about 6 minutes, until the mushroom liquid has boiled away.
- Step 5
Stir in the flour and cook 1 minute. Whisk in the broth and bring to a simmer, then add the cream, lower the heat to medium and simmer about 12 minutes, until the sauce has reduced to about 3 1/2 cups.
✓ What it should look like - Step 6
Stir the beans into the sauce, spread it in a 13 by 9-inch baking dish and scatter the topping evenly over the top.
- Step 7
Bake about 15 minutes, until the topping is deep golden and the sauce bubbles at the edges. Let it rest 5 minutes before serving.
Green Bean Casserole from Scratch
Serves 10 · one 13 by 9-inch casserole · 1 hr 10 min total
Topping
- 3 slices hearty white sandwich bread, torn into quarters
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 1 (6-ounce) can crispy fried onions (about 3 cups)
Beans and sauce
- 2 tbsp salt, for the blanching water
- 2 lb fresh green beans, trimmed and halved crosswise
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 lb white mushrooms, trimmed and broken into 1/2-inch pieces
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3/4 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
Equipment: Oven, Food processor, Baking dish, Rimmed baking sheet, Dutch oven, Chef's knife and cutting board, Measuring cups and spoons, Mixing bowls, Whisk, Paper towels
Method
- Pulse the bread, softened butter, salt and pepper in a food processor about 10 times, to coarse crumbs. Toss with the fried onions in a bowl and set aside.
- Heat the oven to 425°F with a rack in the middle. Line a baking sheet with paper towels and fill a large bowl halfway with ice water.
- Bring 4 quarts of water and 2 tbsp salt to a boil in a Dutch oven. Add the beans and cook about 6 minutes, until bright green and crisp-tender. Move them to the ice water, drain, and spread them on the towels to dry.
- Dry the pot and melt the 3 tbsp butter over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms, garlic, salt and pepper and cook about 6 minutes, until the mushroom liquid has boiled away.
- Stir in the flour and cook 1 minute. Whisk in the broth and bring to a simmer, then add the cream, lower the heat to medium and simmer about 12 minutes, until the sauce has reduced to about 3 1/2 cups.
- Stir the beans into the sauce, spread it in a 13 by 9-inch baking dish and scatter the topping evenly over the top.
- Bake about 15 minutes, until the topping is deep golden and the sauce bubbles at the edges. Let it rest 5 minutes before serving.
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen, "Green Bean Casserole" (August 22, 2007), as written (ATK says 10 to 12; we call it 10). ATK keeps store-bought crispy fried onions on top, and so do we; Tips has a fully homemade option of our own. America's Test Kitchen. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (2)
Tips
- Make-ahead: ATK says the crumb topping keeps 2 days in the refrigerator, and the beans and sauce, assembled in the dish without the topping, keep 24 hours. On Thursday, bake the cold casserole uncovered at 425°F for 10 minutes, add the topping and bake as directed, until 165°F in the center.
- Fully homemade onions (ours): slice 2 large onions very thin, toss with 1/2 cup flour and a pinch of salt, and fry in batches in 1 inch of 350°F oil 3 to 4 minutes, until golden; drain on paper towels. They keep a day in an open paper bag.
- Half batch: use an 8-inch square dish, simmer the sauce only about 6 minutes (to 1 3/4 cups) and bake 10 minutes (ATK).
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Dorcas Reilly invented green bean casserole. Disputed in a small way: Wikipedia and Campbell's credit her, but in a 2005 Associated Press interview for the 50th anniversary she said she didn't remember having a hand in it, because it was one of hundreds of recipes made in the test kitchen then (search results quoting the AP).
- It was invented for Thanksgiving. Documented false: it was made for an Associated Press feature in 1955 and became a Thanksgiving dish in the 1960s (Wikipedia).
- Fresh beans are a must. Disputed: ATK's tasting found fresh beans necessary; the original recipe allowed canned or frozen (search results describing it).
- The onions on top have to come from a can. Folklore: one recipe writer says it isn't green bean casserole without them; ATK keeps them for convenience; homemade fried onions work too.
- It is served at 20 million Thanksgiving dinners. Documented as Campbell's own 2020 estimate (Wikipedia), not an independent count.
Every other Thanksgiving side
Jellied Cranberry Sauce, Canned Style
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Whole-Berry Cranberry Sauce (Boston Cooking-School, 1896)
The old New England stovetop sauce: one bag of cranberries boiled ten minutes in sugar syrup until most of the berries pop, then cooled until it sets loose and glossy.
Raw Cranberry-Orange Relish (the Grinder Classic)
No stove at all: raw cranberries, a whole unpeeled orange, an apple and sugar ground coarse and left to sit a day, the way families once cranked it through a meat grinder clamped to the table.
Skillet Creamed Corn with Bacon
Corn cut off the cob and the cobs scraped for their milky juice, cooked fast in bacon fat with shallots, then bubbled with a little cream and cayenne and finished with crisp bacon and scallions.
Southern Collard Greens with Ham Hocks
Collard greens braised low and slow in the oven with smoked ham hocks, onion and a pinch of sugar and chile until silky, then served in their own smoky broth, the pot likker, with hot sauce on the side.
Parker House Rolls
Soft, buttery pull-apart dinner rolls from the Boston hotel that made them famous: an egg and milk dough, folded over a brush of melted butter so each roll has a lip, baked golden and brushed again.
Southern Skillet Cornbread (No Sugar)
Whole cornmeal, buttermilk and one egg poured into a smoking-hot cast-iron skillet of bacon fat, so it sizzles into a crisp, brown crust. No sugar, a little flour, and ready in 45 minutes.
Molasses-Baked Winter Squash (Boston Cooking-School, 1896)
The squash on an 1896 Boston Thanksgiving menu: two-inch squares of butternut baked in their skins with salt, pepper and a little molasses and melted butter on each piece, covered first, then uncovered until glazed.
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British Creamed Brussels Sprouts with Chestnuts
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Three Sisters Succotash
Corn, beans and squash, the Three Sisters of Native American farming, simmered together in a little stock with onion and sweet pepper. No butter, no cream: the dish New England learned from the Narragansett and Wampanoag, before Yankee cooks changed it.
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