Green Bean Casserole is a classic holiday recipe that doesn’t get enough love. This version of Green Bean Casserole uses fresh beans and mushrooms, has a delectable crunchy topping and no canned soup!
When I think about traditional holiday side dishes, Green Bean Casserole always comes to mind. The problem for me is that two of the main ingredients typically come from a can. Although your mom’s green bean casserole may have been delicious, most likely it was made with a can of cream of mushroom soup and topped with a tin of fried onions. But don’t despair, there are ways to recreate this classic the way you remember, only healthier, a lot more fresh tasting and without canned soup!
While dumping a can of cream of mushroom soup into your green bean casserole is technically “easier”, this homemade mushroom cream sauce will change your life. Hyperbole? Maybe a bit, but this it tastes just as good (even better in my opinion) as the canned soup and is surprisingly really simple to make.
With just a bit of freshly grated parmesan, some sautéed onions, fresh steamed green beans and your homemade, flavorful mushroom sauce, the green bean casserole of your youth is taken to a new level and becomes something even more special that your kids will be telling their kids about years from now.
How to Make Green Bean Casserole without Canned Soup
- Prep the Green Beans: Steam the green beans until fork tender, about 8 minutes. Then preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Make your crispy onion topping: In a large sauce pot, sauté the chopped onions in a tablespoon of butter with salt. Sauté for 4 minutes, until tender. Remove the onions and set aside in a separate bowl with panko and parmesan. Toss to combine. This is your crispy crunchy onion topping! YUM!
- Sauté the mushrooms: In the same sauce pot, melt butter and sauté the sliced mushrooms with salt. Sauté for 4 minutes then add minced garlic and sauté for an additional minute.
- Make the mushroom sauce: Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of flour over the sautéed mushrooms and stir for about 30 seconds to coat the mushrooms. Add the broth and milk, bring to a simmer and cook for 8-10 minutes until the sauce is thickened. To check if your sauce has thickened enough, run your spoon through the pan. If the sauce immediately goes back together, you’ll want to keep reducing. If the line you “drew” remains in the pan, you nailed it!
- Finish your green bean casserole: Add your beans to the mushroom sauce and transfer to a greased 8×8 baking dish. Sprinkle with the onion/panko mixture on top, lightly spray with oil and bake for 25 minutes or until the top is golden.
Make This Dish Ahead of Time
If you’re trying to prep a lot of dishes for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, this is a great one to make the day ahead and assemble when you want to bake! You can make both the crispy onion topping and green bean/mushroom sauce mixture the day before and then continue on with adding the topping and baking the day you want your dish!
Green Bean Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 pound green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 1 1/4 teaspoon salt, divided
- 1/2 cup panko or bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
- 8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1/2 cup whole milk (you can use half and half if you want the dish to be extra rich and creamy)
- cooking oil spray
Instructions
- Place the green beans in a steamer pot over boiling water and steam for 8 minutes or until fork tender.
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- In a large sauce pot melt 1 tablespoon butter and sauté the chopped onion and 1/4 teaspoon of salt for 4 minutes.
- Remove the onions and set aside in a separate bowl with the panko and parmesan cheese. Toss to evenly combine.
- In the same large sauce pot, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, add the mushrooms and remaining 1 teaspoon of salt and sauté for 4 minutes.
- Add the minced garlic and cook for an additional 1 minute.
- Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of flour over the mushrooms and stir for 30 seconds until evenly coated.
- Add the chicken broth and milk, bring to a simmer and cook for 8-10 minutes or until thickened. If you run your spoon through the sauce and it immediately runs back together, continue to reduce.
- Add the beans to the sauce and then pour into a greased 8 x 8 inch baking dish.
- Sprinkle with onion/panko mixture on top, lightly spray with oil and bake for 25 minutes or until the top is golden.
- Serve.
I’ve made this every year since I first discovered this recipe, at least 5 years! It’s so easy and such a crowd favorite. SO GOOD!
You could make the green bean mixture and the onion mixture a day ahead of time. Keep them separated, then combine when ready to place in the oven.
How far in advance could I make this?
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Simply delicious! Followed recipe exactly and it is soooo good. Thanks, Catherine!
That is a Zojuirushi electric skillet! Zojirushi EP-RAC50 Gourmet d’Expert 1350-Watt Electric Skillet
Catherine, I want to try the green bean casserole. I’m adding it to my Thanksgiving meal plan. I have a question: What brand/model is that electric skillet you’re using in the video? I think I could teach my young kids to try cooking if we had something like that. Thank you!
Oops…green beans should have been mushrooms! We love green beans but are not mushroom fans.
No one in our family cares for green beans. Is there a way to make the roux with something else other than mushrooms to give it good flavor?
Love green bean casserole and this one looks soooo creamy 🙂
We’re dairy-free, do you have recommended substitutes for this recipe or won’t it come out good?
This sounds wonderful! What other vegetables would be good in place of the mushrooms? Thank you:)
This is probably how they did this recipe before the canned soup version ever became popular. I’ll bet our gradmas would be proud that we are going back to the more simpler and more healthy times; not to mention the more YUMMY version!!
Love this recipe. Thanks so much.
Spammers are riding on the successful coat tails of this site. Comments with links make it look like Weelicious is endorsing the product to google’s algorithms and bumps up spammers “rankings” in google searches. It’s a bummer, but very common.
Made this tonight and holy cow is it delicious.
On a separate note, what is with all the spam in the comments?!
Thanks for the recipe. It looks yummy.
I would not steam them! Let them thaw completely and then start the recipe at step 2!
If I make this with frozen beans and thaw them, do they still need to be steamed, and for how long if so? I always end up with over cooked or undercooked beans….
Who knew green bean casserole could be so healthy and delicious?! My mom and grandma always used the canned ingredients for this recipe, but after making yours it has become my go-to side dish for holiday dinners. The flavours are so wonderful and I love that it’s healthy!
Just wanted to say thank you for having recipes that don’t include a can of soup. Any “fast” recipe seems to use condensed soup and I don’t use canned soup (not a fan of the ingredients or the BPA).
I absolutely loved this Green Bean Casserole..Made it just as you said. Thank you!!!
This was amazing! Loved it! Just a note that the recipe has an error. #3 should say to melt 1 Tbsp of the butter. I didn’t catch that the first time and melted all the butter. I caught it in time and just poured out some of the butter. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Is there another way to cook the green beans if you don’t have a steamer?
Made this for thanksgiving dinner and it was so so good! I’ve never been big on the original green bean casserole and I’m a pretty picky eater but every single recipe I’ve made from your site has been delicious! Will definitely make this every year and probably in between too.
Made this for Thanksgiving – a huge hit! Only changes: I used Target’s Archer Farms brand frozen thin green beans and cooked them according to microwave instructions. I didn’t add the mushrooms, although I’m sure they’d be delicious. This recipe was delicious and is going in my recipe box for good!
It won’t be as thick but yes you can 🙂
Can you use 2% milk?
Is it ok to use 2% milk?
I’m so glad to find this! Green bean casserole was never a staple on our holiday table (we simmered green beans to death with a whole bunch of bacon). But, my kindergartener surprised me today by insisting that we do green bean casserole this week. He overheard two teachers raving about it and believes it will not be Thanksgiving without it. Thanks for the save!
Thanks for this recipe! I made this tonight and it was very good. My little guy wouldn’t eat it, but I didn’t expect that he would (he doesn’t like green beans or anything breaded so I figured he wouldn’t care for the topping). I forgot to buy mushrooms, so I had to make it without and I think it would have been even better with them (but if you don’t like mushrooms it’s still great w/out). It was a bit strong on the garlic, but that’s probably because I had a very big clove that I used so I’ll be sure to use a smaller one next time (I only just now noticed that it actually calls for 2 cloves, so I’m really glad I didn’t use two of the huge cloves I had) and if I had used mushrooms it probably would have helped tone down the garlic flavor too. I didn’t see a temp listed in the recipe so I baked it at 350 which worked fine. Also, I put a little of the bean mixture in a separate dish for a guest who can’t eat onions (just topped it with a bit of panko, parm and melted butter) and he liked it a lot. Oh, and I used 2% milk instead of whole and it was definitely rich and creamy enough! Thanks again for this very tasty recipe!
Sorry it was at 400 🙂
I’m not sure if I missed this somewhere, but what temperature do you bake at?
What a relief! This is our family’s favorite Thanksgiving dish, but I’m trying to wean them off of processed (canned) foods as much as possible. Thank you!
Everything is from a can if mom(grandma in my case) used canned green beans. ew. This may be why I never liked green bean casserole… or green beans at grandma’s house.
I second Scout’s request. I love the recipes but really fear I don’t have the time for the meticulous construction…game planning would be very helpful. Thanks for all the inspiration!
Yes just let them thaw 🙂
Would it okay to use frozen greens?
I would make it and put it in a dish and refrigerate then bake the day of 🙂
can i make this a day before?
Hi Catherine,
I would be interested too. And also I sent email to you I think last week about homemade ricotta cheese recipe too..
Thanks for all the good work in your website.
Hi! I have a comment unrelated to this recipe. Let me first say that I LOVE your site and all your recipes. I wanted to ask if you would be able to provide a weekly “game plan” for busy working moms (I have a 9 mo. daughter). As a busy working mom yourself, what do you prepare on a weekly basis? Sorry if this comment/question should be posted somewhere else…
Shallots are wonderful! I would totally use shallots too 🙂
I just went out and bought all the ingredients for one I saw in a magazine… but yours sounds much better.Can I use shallots (what I got for the other recipe) instead of yellow onion? Or will it make a large difference?