Review & Recipe: Green Bean Casserole

Posted on 6 May 2007 under Recipes, Reviews: Dishes | 2 Comments

Yesterday morning I thought I’d found a cool thing. Canned Green Bean Casserole! Oh, man, the pic on the can looked great! We’re talking about Margaret Holmes Green Bean Casserole here. I love green bean casserole myself, and have made it often over the years. And there it was, already made up, in a can, ready for the old heat-n-serve! I was going to slowly grill a rack of pork ribs for, like, 4 hours, barbecuing it that last hour with a fruity & spicy barbecue sauce, and a green bean casserole would go well with that.

Later in the day, once those ribs had a couple coats of sauce on ‘em, I opened the green bean casserole and dumped it into a small pot. My first thought was, ”What the hey??” All it was, was cut green beans, in various lengths, in a cream sauce … and that was it! Sure, the instructions on the can said to add fried onions before serving. However, the photo on the label clearly shows chunks of mushroom … but nowhere does the label have the all-telling statement, “Serving Suggestion”.

Tasting it, neither of us liked it anyway. We ate less than half the can between us, and ended up throwing the rest away. I guess when a couple of the ingredients are “non-dairy creamer” and “mushroom powder”, one shouldn’t expect the flavor of an old-fashioned green bean casserole, even from a company established in 1838.

And just what is an old-fashioned green bean casserole? Here’s the recipe I use:

Dave’s Old-Fashioned Green Bean Casserole

2 cans French-cut green beans
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 small cans sliced mushrooms
real sour cream
fried onions
Kosher salt
fresh-ground pepper

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F. Drain the beans, being sure to squeeze out as much fluid as possible, and add them to a medium mixing bowl. Drain the mushrooms the same way and add them to the beans. Add the cream of mushroom soup to the bean and mushroom mixture, retaining the can. Then add one soup-can of sour cream to the bowl as well. Fold everything together well, being sure not to shred the beans. Add Kosher salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste.

Either grease, or use non-stick spray on, the inside bottom and sides of an 8″ casserole dish. Add the bean mixture to the casserole dish, spreading it evenly. Top it with a thin layer of the fried onions. Bake the casserole, uncovered, for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F. Let it set 5 minutes before serving.

Note: A nice variation is to replace the cream of mushroom soup with a roast garlic cream of mushroom soup. Or, try cream of celery, cream of chicken, cream of broccoli … there are many possibilities.