“Halfway Homemade” Green Bean Casserole

My most memorable meal is every Thanksgiving. I love the food: the turkey and the stuffing; the sweet potatoes and rice, which comes from my mother’s Southern heritage; the mashed potatoes, which comes from my wife’s Midwestern roots; the Campbell’s green bean casserole; and of course, pumpkin pie.

-Douglas Conant

There is little I love in this world more than green bean casserole. I have never fully understood why people only make this dish for holidays? Why not all year round?

Regardless, it is my FAVORITE! I could literally eat an entire large casserole sized dish of it by myself if it was left unattended during a holiday meal. Thankfully I fall asleep from too much turkey before I can do that.

Last year my little sister made a future Thanksgiving request, she asked me to use fresh green beans in the casserole. Apparently girlfriend is too fancy for the canned french style green beans I love (just kidding) but I like a good challenge this year I gave it a try.

Let me just first say, Avery you knocked it out of the park with this idea. I thought for sure fresh green beans would be a pain to prep & wouldn’t taste as good but I was so wrong! This casserole is easily the best version I have ever made!

I call this dish my “Halfway Homemade” Green Bean Casserole because 80% of the meal is made from scratch but you really can’t beat Campbell’s cream of mushroom & ain’t nobody got time to fry their own onions!

How to add a new level of freshness to your Green Bean Casserole:

As mentioned above, the #1 reason I didn’t want to change my casserole recipe is because fresh green beans seemed like a painful task to prep…I’m not sure if you ever helped your grandmother snap pounds of fresh beans before, but believe me, it will give you nightmares.

Thankfully I found the save-all when it comes to getting fresh green beans…Trader Joes Haricot Verts aka fancy snap beans. All you have to do is snap them in half, cut the ends & voila fresh beans!

To make this dish you need to preheat your oven to 375 degrees & bring a salted pot of water to a boil.

Next, melt butter and sauté your slice mushrooms until begin to brown. Add garlic, onion powder, salt & pepper into the skillet and cook for 1 minute before adding in a splash of chicken stock/broth.

How to blanch fresh green beans:

Let’s talk about blanching. This is essentially a fancy term to mean you flash cook your beans & then shock them with cold water to stop the cooking almost as quickly as you started.

To do this, you will boil your green beans in a pot of boiling water until they turn bright green (between 2-5 minutes). Then immediately drain the beans & place them into a bowl filled with ice water. This will stop the cooking process so the beans will be ready to eat!

After you blanch your beans & you give your mushroom broth combination a few minutes to simmer, add 1 can of cream of mushroom soup to the skillet. Stir all ingredients together and simmer for 5 minutes.

When your “sauce” is ready, add in your freshly blanched green beans. Coat your beans & then transfer them to an oven safe casserole dish/skillet.

Top your dish/skillet with fried onions. Cover the dish with foil & place in oven. Cook your green bean casserole for 15 minutes until bubbly.

Do you like your fried onions crispy?

If you like your onions extra crispy like I do, remove foil in the last 5 minutes of baking. This allows for your onions to crisp up without burning!

Fresh vegetables + an entire can of cream of mushroom + pre-made fried onions = the greatest “Halfway Homemade” Green Bean Casserole dish ever, am I right!?!

This dish is sure to be a huge hit at any Friendgiving/Thanksgiving gathering you bring it too. It is just fancy enough to impress your friends and family without loosing the classic green bean casserole taste that you love.

ENJOY!