Green bean casserole… BORING!
But wait! What if you used fresh green beans, made your own mushroom cream sauce, and topped it with flavorful crispy fried onions? This recipe brings life into a side that has been missing a lot of love for too long.
To make this Green Bean Casserole recipe, start by preheating your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a pot, over high heat, boil one gallon of water then add two tablespoons of salt to the water. Cook the green beans in the boiling water for 6 minutes. After six minutes remove the green beans from the boiling water and place into a container full of ice water to shock them and keep them from cooking any longer. Pour the green beans into a colander, after they have been allowed to cool for 3-4 minutes in the ice water.
In a medium sauce pot, melt your butter then sauté the mushrooms and onions until the onions are soft and translucent. Add the flour, the rest of the salt, pepper, nutmeg, and minced garlic to the pot and continue to cook for a few additional minutes.
Add chicken stock to the pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add your heavy cream and simmer until the sauce thickens. Once the sauce has thickened a bit you can remove it from the heat.
In a shallow baking pan or casserole, add your green beans and mushroom sauce together. Toss and mix to make sure all of the green beans are coated in the mushroom cream.
Cover the top of the casserole with the onion straws and bake, uncovered, for approximately twenty minutes or until the onion straws are nice and crispy. They sell crispy onion pieces at most grocery stores and they are pretty good but if you have the time you can make them from scratch.
To make fried onions from scratch all you need to do is slice an onion into thin strips, batter them with buttermilk, coat in seasoned flour (flour, salt, pepper, cayenne, mustard powder) and deep fry in hot oil until crispy. Just be careful not to eat all of them before topping the casserole.
Remove from the casserole from the oven and serve hot. Letting it rest for about 15 minutes will help the cream to relax and thicken back up.
A needed upgrade to a traditional holiday side dish. Hope you enjoy!
Green Bean Casserole
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Fresh Green Beans; Trimmed and Halved
- 1.5 lbs Sliced Mushrooms button or Portobello works great, or a mushroom blend
- 4 Cloves of Minced Garlic
- 1 Yellow Onion; Sliced thin
- 4 tbsp Unsalted Butter
- 2 tbsp Salt and 2t Salt Keep separate
- 4 tbsp Flour
- 1 tsp Pepper
- 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
- 2 cup Chicken Broth
- 2 cup Heavy Cream
- 3 cup Fried Onion Straws Fry your own or buy the premade ones.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Boil 1 gallon of water, add two tablespoons of salt to water. Blanch the green beans in boiling water for 6 minutes. Remove the green beans from boiling water and quickly shock in ice water to keep from overcooking.
- In a medium sauce pot, melt your butter then sauté the mushrooms and onions until the onions soften. Add the flour, the rest of the salt, pepper, nutmeg, and minced garlic to the pot and continue to sauté. Add chicken stock to the pot and bring to a boil, once boiling add your heavy cream and simmer until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat.
- In a shallow baking pan add your green beans and mushroom sauce together and toss to make sure all green beans are coated.
- Cover the top of the casserole with the onion straws and bake, uncovered, for approximately twenty minutes.
- Cover and let rest for 15 minutes before serving.
Notes
