Green bean casserole is an American baked dish consisting primarily of

green bean Green beans are young, unripe fruits of various cultivars of the common bean ('' Phaseolus vulgaris''), although immature or young pods of the runner bean (''Phaseolus coccineus''), yardlong bean ( ''Vigna unguiculata'' subsp. ''sesquipedalis ...

cream of mushroom soup Cream of mushroom soup is a simple type of soup where a basic roux is thinned with cream or milk and then mushrooms and/or mushroom broth are added. It is well known in North America as a common type of condensed canned soup. Cream of mushroom ...

, and french fried onions. It is a popular

side dish A side dish, sometimes referred to as a side order, side item, or simply a side, is a food item that accompanies the entrée or main course at a meal.Thanksgiving dinner The centerpiece of contemporary Thanksgiving in the United States and in Canada is Thanksgiving dinner (informally called turkey dinner), a large meal generally centered on a large roasted turkey. Thanksgiving could be considered the largest ...

s in the United States and has been described as ''iconic''. The recipe was created in 1955 by Dorcas Reilly at the

Campbell Soup Company Campbell Soup Company, trade name, doing business as Campbell's, is an American processed food and snack company. The company is most closely associated with its flagship canned soup products; however, through mergers and acquisitions, it has gro ...

. Campbell's estimated it was served in 20 million Thanksgiving dinners in the US each year and that 40% of the company's cream of mushroom soup sales go into a version of the dish. Variations on the dish include

broccoli Broccoli (''Brassica oleracea'' var. ''italica'') is an edible green plant in the cabbage family (family Brassicaceae, genus ''Brassica'') whose large flowering head, stalk and small associated leaves are eaten as a vegetable. Broccoli is cl ...

casserole, using a different creamed soup variety, or using sauteed onions instead of deep-fried ones.

Background

Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom flavored soup variety was created in 1934 and was the first of the company's soups to be marketed as a sauce as well as a soup. It became so widely used as

casserole A casserole ( French: diminutive of , from Provençal 'pan') is a normally large deep pan or bowl a casserole is anything in a casserole pan. Hot or cold History Baked dishes have existed for thousands of years. Early casserole recipes ...

filler in recipes for the

hotdish A hotdish is a casserole dish that typically contains a starch, a meat, and a canned or frozen vegetable mixed with canned soup that must be served hot or warm. A classic example is made with ground beef, topped with tater tots, and flavored w ...

recipes popular in Minnesota that it was sometimes referred to as "Lutheran binder." Like other food companies, Campbell's employed recipe developers to create recipes using their products as part of their marketing strategy.

History of the recipe

Dorcas Reilly (1926–2018) created the recipe in 1955 while working in the

home economics Home economics, also called domestic science or family and consumer sciences, is a subject concerning human development, personal and family finances, consumer issues, housing and interior design, nutrition and food preparation, as well as texti ...

department at the Campbell's Soup Company. The recipe was created for a feature article for the Associated Press; the requirement was for a quick and easy dish using ingredients most US households kept on hand. It was called "Green Bean Bake" when the recipe began being printed on soup cans. Initially the dish did not test well within the company but, in part because of Reilly's persistence, eventually earned a reputation for being "the ultimate

comfort food Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone, and may be characterized by its high caloric nature, high carbohydrate level, or simple preparation. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual, or it may app ...

." Culinary historian Laura Shapiro called the recipe's use of the crunchy fried onion topping a "touch of genius" that gave an otherwise ordinary convenience-food side dish a bit of "glamour". ''

Food & Wine ''Food & Wine'' is an American monthly magazine published by Dotdash Meredith. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and season ...

'' called it iconic, and ''

Good Housekeeping ''Good Housekeeping'' is an American women's magazine featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, and health, as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good House ...

'' said that "few dishes are as iconic" as the green bean casserole.

Popularity

It was originally marketed as an everyday side dish but became popular for Thanksgiving dinners in the 1960s after Campbell's placed the recipe on the can's label. The recipe popularized the combination of the soup with green beans. Campbell's Soup now estimates that 40 percent of the Cream of Mushroom soup sold in the United States goes into making green bean casserole. As of 2020 Campbell's estimated it was served in 20 million Thanksgiving dinners in the US each year. Campbell's in 2020 reported their online version of the recipe is viewed 4 million times each Thanksgiving Day. According to Campbell's as of 2018, the recipe is the most popular ever developed in their kitchens. Folklorist Lucy Long in 2007 noted that its inclusion on Thanksgiving dinner tables crosses ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious differences. She also notes it is included in most popular American cookbooks, mentioned in the media regularly, and referred to a "classic", "traditional", and "a Thanksgiving standard". She wrote that the popularity of the dish was related to its categorization as a casserole, which in the US is associated with "communal eating, sharing, and generosity" and that the green bean casserole in particular represents the familiar and also the festive.

Ingredients

The recipe, which hasn't changed, calls for green beans, mushroom soup, milk,

soy sauce Soy sauce (also called simply soy in American English and soya sauce in British English) is a liquid condiment of Chinese origin, traditionally made from a fermented paste of soybeans, roasted grain, brine, and '' Aspergillus oryzae'' or ''Asp ...

, ground

black pepper Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, known as a peppercorn, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in diame ...

, and french fried onions. The beans, soup, milk, and seasonings are mixed together with a portion of the onions and baked, then topped with more onions and baked for another few minutes. Multiple similar recipes have been developed that "update" or "upgrade" the original recipe to use fresh beans, homemade cream sauce, and fresh mushrooms as the convenience-food based recipes of the 1950s and 1960s have become less fashionable, but according to culinary historian Shapiro, the green bean casserole remains popular for Thanksgiving for reasons of nostalgia. Other recipes have been developed, by Campbell's and others, that incorporate a variety of ingredients in addition to or in replacement of those in the original.

Creator

In November of 2002, Reilly, representing Campbell's, donated the original recipe card to the

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also opera ...

Akron, Ohio Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County, Ohio, Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 C ...

. The donation was followed by a meal featuring the dish. Reilly died 15 October 2018, at the age of 92 in her hometown of

Camden, New Jersey Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the 2020 ...

References

External links

Classic recipe at Campbells.com
{{Thanksgiving Food and drink introduced in 1955 Casserole dishes Legume dishes Thanksgiving food Marketing in the United States American casseroles