Classic Green Bean Casserole

Follow step-by-step, photo illustrated instructions to make this Classic Green Bean Casserole.  This super quick and easy dish is a standard for Thanksgiving Dinner, but it’s a perfect side dish for any meal, any time of the year.  Thank you Dorcas Reilly for inventing the Green Bean Casserole back in 1955.  Millions of us have been enjoying it for years.  Printable recipe included.

Green Bean Casserole Recipe:

NOTE:  We’re including this dish in our Thanksgiving Menu collection of recipes.  You’ll find links to our complete step-by-step, photo illustrated instructions for making a Thanksgiving Dinner the whole family will enjoy.  Whether it’s your first time in charge, or just looking for some ideas, be sure to check out the entire listing.  Coming Soon, we’re starting with this one.  

You’re probably wondering why anyone would go to the trouble to photograph and post a recipe, as easy, or as standard, as this classic Green Bean Casserole recipe.  Well, I asked myself the same question, so you’re in pretty good company, as far as I’m concerned.  Then, I realized that surely someone, somewhere, would need this recipe before they went shopping for all the ingredients.  And, someone, somewhere, will likely be making this dish for the very first time as they plan their very first Thanksgiving Dinner for the family.  It’s a worthwhile endeavor!

If you’re like me, you have probably had this dish served at family gatherings, cousin reunions and all kinds of other occasions where family and friends gather together for a large meal.  Maybe even a smaller one.  It’s become one of the standard side dish items on tables everywhere for more than 50 years.  That’s right… it’s an “oldie but goodie.”

In preparing to do the recipe here on Taste of Southern, I decided to do a little research into it’s beginnings.  Sure enough, the Internets came through.  Did you know that the Green Bean Casserole we either love, or hate, whichever the case may be… was created back in 1955?  Were you even born then?  Ha!

It seems the Campbell Soup Company is responsible for this classic dish.  A lady by the name of Dorcas Reilly is credited with creating it while she worked in the Campbell Soup Company home economics department.  Now, if you have to look up “home economics,” you’re just a young’un.  I understand they don’t even have those classes in schools these days.  What’s up with that?

Ms Reilly led the team that created the recipe.  Two people worked on staff for the Campbell Soup Company Home Economics Department at the time.  She wanted to come up with an easy recipe based on two things Americans always kept handy, Green Beans and Campbell’s Mushroom Soup. As they say… the rest is history.  Thank you Dorcas Reilly.  (This will make great trivia conversation around the table, don’t you think?)

I first thought about doing this entirely from scratch.  Then, I realized that all the years that mama made this, and that I’ve made this, neither one of us had ever made it from scratch.  We just used the recipe that is listed on the can of French’s French Fried Onions, like all your family and friends do.  Why make it any harder?  Right?

I hope you’ll at least enjoy looking at the recipe.  If it’s your first time making it, I’d love to know about that and how it turns out for you.  Please take the time to share your thoughts, memories, and Comments with us in the section at the end of the recipe below.

Ready to give it a try?  Alright then, Let’s Get Cooking!

The Classic Green Bean Casserole Recipe:  You’ll need these ingredients.

Let’s begin by draining off the water from our Green Beans.  You don’t want to be adding that into the recipe.

Now, fill that can back up with water and give it a good shake or two.

Then, pour that water off.  I’d even suggest that you do this another time or two, just to be sure you’ve rinsed away as much of the original water from the can as possible.  Drain the beans real good and just set them aside for the moment.

In a large mixing bowl, add the Mushroom Soup.

Add the Evaporated Milk.

Add the Black Pepper.

Add the rinsed and drained Green Beans.

Add part of the French Fried Onions.

Gently toss it all together until the beans are well coated.

Spread the mixture out in a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish.  Place the dish in your oven.

Bake the casserole for about 25-30 minutes, or until it’s bubbling hot.  Just watch it closely and don’t let it burn.

After 30 minutes in the oven, pull the dish back out.  Careful, it’s HOT!

Gently stir it all around.  Spread it back out evenly in the casserole dish.

Spread a generous layer of the French Fried Onions around the inner edge of the dish.  Place it back in the oven.

Place the dish back in the oven and let it bake for about five more minutes, or until the onions on top are lightly browned.

Let it bake for another five minutes, or just until the onions begin to brown slightly.  Don’t let them burn.

Serve warm and Enjoy!