Green Bean Casserole From Scratch
Green Bean Casserole is a classic holiday side dish. This casserole is made with fresh green beans, creamy mushrooms sauce, and French’s fried onions. This side dish is incredibly delicious and really easy to make from scratch.
Green bean casserole is one of THE classic Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner side dishes. It is definitely our favorite.
It’s a classic recipe but made it from scratch. Fresh ingredients and amazing homemade sauce!
It’s not much more difficult to prepare this casserole and it tastes amazing.
You can easily make several steps ahead of time!
For the fried onions, you can use French’s fried onions, which are so tasty, or you can take it a step further and make your own. I like to use French’s because they really are delicious and because making homemade fried onions would be the longest step in the process.
How To Blanch Green Beans
PRO TIP: This step is very important to preserve the gorgeous, bright green color and the crisp. It takes about 10 minutes but guess what? You can blanch green beans ahead of time and refrigerate (or freeze) them. This way, green beans will be all set to go into the casserole.
- Snip the ends off green beans where the bean attached to the vine, if needed.
- Prepare ice water bowl by combining cold water and a couple of cups of ice in a large mixing bowl.
- Bring a large pot of water to boil and drop green beans in it. Boil them for about 1-2 minutes (depending on thickness). Don’t overcook!
- Use a skimmer or long metal tongs to take green beans out of the hot water and immediately into the ice water.
- After green beans have cooled, take them out onto a clean kitchen towel (or paper towels) to pat dry.
How to Make Green Bean Casserole
- Preheat a large cooking pan over medium heat and add some. Sauté thinly sliced onions until transparent and then, add sliced mushrooms. Sauté both until done and golden brown.
- Mince or press garlic and add it to the center of the pan. Cook until just fragrant fragrant and mix with onions and mushrooms.
- Sprinkle flour over the veggies and stir to coat the veggies evenly in flour. Start slowly pouring in milk while whisking continuously. Pour in heavy whipping while while still stirring.
- Season with salt, and pepper and continue to stir slowly as the mixture thickens. Once the cream sauce is thickened, take off heat.
Casserole:
- Preheat oven to 375°F and lightly grease a 9×13 casserole dish.
- Add green beans into the casserole dish, pour in mushroom cream sauce, and add 1/2 cup of fried onions. Mix everything together until evenly incorporated.
- Cover with foil and bake for 35-45 minutes, depending if you want green beans crunchier or softer.
- Take the pan out and carefully take off the foil. Spread remaining fried onions over the top and bake for another 7-10 minutes.
KRISTINE :
NOVEMBER 30, 2019 AT 3:03 AM
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Absolutely fantastic! I got rave reviews for this. Usually, when I do the holiday cooking, I am so hyped, or tired, that I don’t taste anything for some reason. Well, here it is, 3AM, two days later and I am enjoying these immensely. Thank you a wonderful recipe.
Make Ahead Tips
There are a couple of ways to save some time and prepare this dish ahead of time.
To save 10 minutes, you can blanch green beans ahead of time and refrigerate. After cooling green beans in an ice bath, pat them dry, and put them into an air-tight container with a lid. Refrigerate for a day or two.
Green bean casserole can also be prepared almost completely and cooked the next day. Prepare the casserole up to the step of adding fried onions and baking, cover, and refrigerate instead. (Don’t add the fried onions.)
When ready, let the casserole sit on the counter while the oven is preheating and follow the recipe to bake it. Just add about 10 more minutes to bake time under foil since you are starting with a cold casserole.
Recipe FAQs
Why blanch green beans? The reason for blanching green beans is to preserve the gorgeous, bright green color and the crisp. If you cook green beans without blanching them, they will turn dark green and mushy.
This step takes about 10 minutes but guess what? You can blanch green beans ahead of time and refrigerate (or freeze) them. This way, green beans will be all set to go into the casserole.
In the mushroom sauce, use all purpose gluten free flour instead of regular flour.
For the fried onions, you can get gluten free fried onions that many grocery stores do have in stock, especially during the holiday season.
If making your own fried onions, use gluten free all purpose flour instead of regular flour.
Some More Holiday Side Dish Recipes
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Green Bean Casserole Recipe
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs green beans
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 1 small yellow onion
- 8 oz baby bella mushrooms
- 4 garlic cloves
- 5 tbsp all purpose flour*
- 3 cups whole milk
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- Salt
- Fresh cracked black pepper
- 6 oz French's fried onion* divided
Instructions
Blanch Green beans:
- Snip the ends off green beans where the bean attached to the vine. You can cut green beans in half or leave them whole.
- Prepare ice water bowl by combining cold water and a couple of cups of ice in a large mixing bowl.
- Bring a large pot of water to boil and drop green beans in it. Boil them for about 3-4 minutes (depending on thickness).
- Take green beans out of the hot water and immediately into the ice water.
- After green beans have cooled, take them out onto a paper towel to pat dry.
Cream sauce:
- Preheat a large cooking pan over medium heat.
- Slice onions and mushrooms thinly.
- Add oil to the pan and onions. Saute until transparent.
- Add mushrooms and cook until mostly done.
- Mince or press garlic and add it to the pan. Cook until fragrant.
- Sprinkle flour over the veggies and stir until veggies are coated in flour.
- Start slowly pouring in milk while whisking continuously. Pour in heavy whipping while while still stirring. Continue to stir slowly as the mixture thickens.
- Season with salt, and pepper and cook for a couple of minutes. Take off heat.
Casserole:
- Preheat oven to 375℉ and lightly grease a 9×13 casserole dish.
- Add green beans into the casserole dish, pour in mushroom cream sauce, and add 1/2 cup of fried onions. Mix everything together until evenly incorporated.
- Cover with foil and bake for 35-45 minutes, depending if you want green beans crunchier or softer.
- Take the pan out and carefully take off the foil. Spread remaining fried onions over the top and bake for another 7-10 minutes.
Video
Notes
- Gluten Free Notes: In the mushroom sauce, use all purpose gluten free flour instead of regular flour.
For the fried onions, you can get gluten free fried onions that many grocery stores do have in stock, especially during the holiday season.
If making homemade fried onions, use gluten free all purpose flour instead of regular flour. - Storing and reheating: Store leftover green bean casserole in an air-tight food storage container, in the refrigerator. Properly stored, it should last 3-4 days. To reheat it, you can reheat individual portions in the microwave, in 30 minute increments. You can also reheat it in the oven at 350 until just hot.
Nutrition
Originally published on Will Cook For Smiles in October 2018.
Categories:
Christmas Dinner Recipes, Easter Recipes, Gluten Free Recipes, Most Popular Recipes, Seasonal Recipes, Side Dishes, Thanksgiving Dinner Recipes, Vegetables,All images and text ©Lyubov Brooke for ©Will Cook For Smiles. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If using my posts in collections and features, please link back to this post for the recipe.
Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as most ingredients and brands have variations.
I made this last weekend for a potluck and it was a hit! Everyone wanted the recipe! It’s much better then the recipes made with canned mushroom soup.
I am so glad everyone liked it, Alice!
Absolutely fantastic! I got rave reviews for this. Usually, when I do the holiday cooking, I am so hyped, or tired, that I don’t taste anything for some reason. Well, here it is, 3AM, two days later and I am enjoying these immensely. Thank you a wonderful recipe.
Kristine, I am so glad your enjoying it! 🙂
Your pictures are gorgeous! I need these green beans in my life. lol Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Thank you, Glenda! I hope you give them a try! 🙂