Ree Drummond's Fan-Favorite Green Bean Casserole | The Pioneer Woman | Food Network

Green bean casserole is a classic comfort food, and it's perfect for potluck. I see it at pretty much every potluck we ever have at our church. Traditional green bean casserole usually involves cracking open some cans of green beans, some other cans of things, mixing them together and baking them. But I make a homemade green bean casserole that is so good, it is over-the-top delicious. I've got some butter that I melted in a pan, and I sprinkled in a quarter cup of flour. And I'll just whisk this together. I'm basically making a roux as the basis for a sauce. And I'll just let that cook around for a couple minutes. And while that's cooking, I'll measure some milk and half and half, which I think makes for a pretty darn good green bean casserole. I'll do two and a half cups of whole milk and a little half and half, about half a cup. All right, this is cooked, and it's looking good. So I'm just going to pour the milk and whisk it as it goes in. With the classic green bean casserole, creamy soup is one of the ingredients. So this is sort of to replace the creamy soup. This is going to take a few minutes to bubble up. And just like the meatballs, this is a perfect dish for potluck, because I can make it the night before, keep it in the fridge, and then bake it the next day. I'm going to go ahead and season it with a little salt, plenty of pepper. Why is black pepper so good in white sauce? They just go together. And a little cayenne. This is another thing that sets it apart from the traditional green bean casserole. It's got a little bit of a kick to it. Now, I'll just let this cook for a few minutes and thicken and bubble up. And I'm going to grate some cheddar cheese. You can also do Monterey Jack cheese, which would keep the dish nice and white and creamy. But I love cheddar cheese. And I have a big block in my fridge I need to use up. So all right, I need about a cup. And I've been talking about cheese so long that I actually grated more than a cup. But I'll go ahead and use it. You can never have too much cheese. Well, maybe you can. But I haven't found a limit yet. OK, now I'll let the cheese melt into the sauce. This is going to turn into a wonderful, delicious cheese sauce. And then I'm going to add this skillet full of utter deliciousness. I just fried four slices of bacon cut into pieces in a skillet over medium heat for about two minutes. Then I added a half a large onion that I diced, a finely diced red bell pepper, three cloves of minced garlic, then cooked them for three to five minutes. Oh, this smells so good. Bacon smells good no matter what you cook it with. Then I'll just stir it. And that's the sauce for the green bean casserole. OK, now for the green beans. I blanched these green beans. And that's part of what sets this apart from your average green bean casserole, which is commonly made with canned green beans. I just blanched the green beans, threw them into boiling water for about a minute, minute and a half. And then I plunged them into ice water to stop the cooking process. And what that did is it just brightened them up, made them really, really beautiful and green. And it's going to let them stay crisp in this casserole. All right, I'll just even those up. And then the sauce gets poured all over the top. Oh, my word, this looks good. And it smells good. It's going to taste good. Who knew green bean casserole could be so decadent? Yummy. Then I'll just spread it to even it out. And then for the top of the casserole, I like to use panko breadcrumbs, which are nice and crisp and crunchy. The traditional topping for green bean casserole is usually French fried onions or crumbled potato chips. And I like those too. But this is just a nice updated change. All right, you've got to try this. It is so good. Now I'm just going to cover it up, stick it in the fridge. And then in the morning before church, I'll bake it along with the meatballs. Perfect potluck dish. Y'all want to help me with the food? Yep. Thanks. Here, Paigey. Boy, am I getting hungry. OK, we'll bring it all in here. Stick that up there, Bryce. This needs to go in the oven and heat up for a little while. Yep. OK. Good morning. And it is the parish potluck. As we gather up and share food, one of my favorite times. So by all means, don't forget and don't leave too quickly. Boy, oh boy, oh boy. Does this look good. I'm going to have to get a little bit of everything, but I might need two plates. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this, but potluck is my favorite kind of food. Todd, if you have jello for your main course, what are you going to have for dessert? I'm going to get some cake. But you can have my raspberry for it. OK, I'll do that. So Bryce, what did you like that you got? Green beans. You did good, Mom. Lunch is over, and I am stuffed. I ate so much. It was so good. I promised Charlie I'd take him a little doggie bag, though, so I'm going to sneak a couple pieces of ham. I'm sure no one will mind. It's 7 AM. It's Thanksgiving. We're having a huge feast up at the lodge. The kids and Lad are out feeding cattle and horses, and I'm headed up to the lodge to get a jump start on the meal. The first time I cooked the entire Thanksgiving feast for our family, I was so terrified. But it all turned out fine. In fact, some of it was really delicious. So I felt so good about myself, and I'm always happy to cook Thanksgiving dinner. I've learned through the years that the more you do ahead of time, the better. I'm going to whip up another one of my very favorite Thanksgiving side dishes, green beans and tomatoes. It starts with eight slices of bacon. I just cut them into chunks, and I've been sauteing it just over medium-low heat. I just wanted to render the fat. So now I'm going to throw in one chopped onion. Bacon and onions cooking. I mean, there is nothing like it. I don't want to get too much color on it. I just want the onions to start cooking a little bit. All right, now I've got some fresh green beans, and I just washed them up. And I am very relaxed about trimming green beans. I just sort of stack up a few and chop off the ends. This is about two pounds of green beans. All right, now on top of the green beans, I'm just going to add three regular cans of whole tomatoes. You can do diced tomatoes, but I really like the big red chunks in the dish. Now I'll add in some salt and pepper, good amount of black pepper. And then this is the essential ingredient, cayenne pepper. It gives it just a little bit of spice. And I hate to say it, but that's it. I'm just going to give them a quick stir, put the lid on, and let it simmer for an hour. Stuffing, if you stuff it in the bird. It's called dressing if you put it in a pan and bake it. So I'm going to make dressing, basically. So I started by cooking some sausage in the skillet. I took it out and put it in a bowl. And so the flavor of the sausage is still in there. So I'm going to add some mirepoix, which is nothing more than, sorry, what happened here? Nothing more than onions, carrots, and celery. Then I have some chopped fresh thyme, and I'll add it to the veggies. And then a little bit of salt. I'm going to crank up the heat, and I'm going to cook these veggies until they start to sweat. And by that time, I'll probably be sweating, too. Don't go away. So the stuffing needs liquid, so I'm going to add an entire carton of low-sodium chicken broth. You can use veggie broth or turkey broth, any kind of broth. And I'm going to add some ground sage, which is a very quintessential Thanksgiving herb. And then thyme, more thyme. There's fresh thyme in here, and this is dried thyme. And then I like to add a tiny pinch of turmeric. If you add too much, it will turn whatever you're cooking like bright orange-yellow. So I just add seriously a pinch, and it adds just a tiny bit of golden, beautiful color without turning your stuffing fluorescent orange. OK, so that is looking great. Look at this, Alex. Basically, it looks like soup at this stage. I've got two kinds of bread. And girls and boys, if you're making Thanksgiving dinner and you've got to make the stuffing, you have to plan ahead of time. I actually cut up this bread two days ago and put them on sheet pans so they could totally dry out. Stay over it. That's fun. Uh-oh. Run away. You want the bread to be completely dry. And listen, that's how dry that bread is. Now, I am a big believer in cornbread stuffing, and so I also made cornbread like 2.4 days ago. And I cut it into cubes, and it has been drying out too. So we've got a mix of French bread and cornbread. So look at this, Alex. Down in the bottom is the sausage, OK? I love sausage in stuffing slash dressing. OK, so the liquid is now liquidy and hot. So basically, what you want to do is grab a couple of ladles at a time and get the veggies and the liquid. Spoon it over. Do a little tossing. You don't want to pour it in all at once. Oh, it smells so good. Couple more ladles and toss. So I'm going to do the same thing until I've used up all the liquid. Fresh parsley. All right, should we put this in the oven? Oh, yeah. So I'm going to bake this stuffing at 350 degrees until the top gets nice and crisp and it's all heated through. Oh, it smells so good in this kitchen. I'm telling you. Here is the dressing slash stuffing slash dressing. Look, is that beautiful or what? And you can't tell this, but the surface of the bread is just as crisp as can be and then so soft underneath. I'm going to make potatoes. Not just any potatoes, scallop potatoes. Not just any scallop potatoes, over-the-top scallop potatoes. And I'm telling you what, these are incredibly delicious. You are going to absolutely fall in love. They're perfect for any spring dinner, lunch, brunch, whatever you've got planned. I have some heavy cream and half and half in this saucepan and I've just been warming it up. I'm not going to bring it to a boil or anything. It just needs to be warm. And I sprinkled in some salt and pepper and I'm going to add a little bit of flour. And this is just the mixture that will kind of provide the cream base for the scallop potatoes. So it's not very much flour, just enough to make the whole mixture really thick. Scallop potatoes are such a quintessential spring side dish. I don't know why necessarily. They're just amazing. I love serving them for like Easter dinner, Easter brunch. And they go with everything. I'm making land chops, as I said. But they go so great with ham, beef, anything you want to make. OK, that little cream base is ready, nice and warm. So I'm going to start assembling the potato dish. I'm using a very generously buttered baking dish. And I have a whole bunch of sliced potatoes. They were sliced on a mandolin just to get them really super thin. And that's what makes this potato dish so wonderful. First of all, it gives the potatoes a chance to actually cook and get tender. If they're too thick, you kind of have to bake it for too long. And it just becomes kind of a chore. But they also create this incredible just layered potato vibe, so good. All right, so I'm putting about a third of the potatoes in the dish first. And I also have a mixture of bacon and caramelized onions. I just fried some bacon, added some butter, and cooked onions with the bacon until, as you can see, they're just golden and incredibly flavorful. This really packs a punch because it's just been caramelized for so long. So you don't have to add very much to each layer for it to really add that flavor. And I have two different cheeses, fontina. I'll add a third of that and Gruyere, a third of that. And then I'll go back to my little saucepan of cream and half and half, flour, salt, and pepper. And I'm going to pour a third of this over the potatoes. Now, you could pour this on at the very end. But I like actually pouring it on in layers so you can be sure that everything gets totally coated in the cream. OK, so that's one layer. I'm going to do two more exactly like this. So here goes with layer two, potatoes, bacon, and onion, the cheeses, fontina and Gruyere, and a third of the cream mixture. Then it's more of the same, adding layers of potato-y, bacon-y deliciousness, the rest of the cheese, and the cream. I'm going to cover the dish with foil. You cannot imagine how good it smells already. So it is going to just fill the kitchen with delicious smells the whole time it's baking. So these are going to bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. And then I'll take the foil off and let it go for another 20. These will be ready when the lamb chops and carrots are done. These lamb chops look incredible. These potatoes look magical. And look at these carrots. All right, a couple of garnishes. That's all that's left. On the lamb chops, I'm just doing parsley. It makes it look exceptionally gorgeous. And a little extra herbs in the springtime never, ever hurt. And then for the potatoes, I have some scallions slash green onions, plenty of those on top. OK, what a spread. Now let me show you what it's going to look like on the gorgeous table. I'm serving family style, so I'll put out the carrots, chops, and potatoes and pineapple bars for dessert. With the flowers and the simple setting, it'll be a perfect spring supper. Well, I have an idea for a Thanksgiving breakfast casserole that is so scrumptious. It has all the flavors of Thanksgiving, but you can make it the night before, which makes it very easy. And it's just the thing to eat for breakfast on Turkey Day. I started by cutting up some cinnamon raisin English muffins. This casserole has a nice, savory, sweet flavor. I'm going to check what's in the skillet. I've got a mixture of diced Granny Smith apples and diced onion. I also added some fresh sage just to really up the Thanksgiving flavor. And I sauteed it until it's soft. So I'm going to turn off the heat and just let that sit. And now I'll whip up the egg mixture. Got a bunch of eggs for the casserole, and I'll start by mixing them up a bit. And to make them a little creamy, I'll add some whole milk and half and half. Callie, by the way, is a friend of mine. She has a store right across the street from the Merc. She and her husband, Joey, are such a sweet couple. I love to make breakfast casseroles the night before Thanksgiving. It's really great to have it ready to go in the fridge when you wake up and just pop it in the oven. We don't wind up eating Thanksgiving dinner until later in the day, so it's nice to start the day with a little something to eat. Okay, while I keep mixing this up, I've got time for another question. Hi, Rie. If I'm cooking my own Thanksgiving dinner, what's the first thing I should do? Oh, Mackenzie, so you're making your first Thanksgiving meal. Well, my first piece of advice would be run. Run for the hills. I'm just kidding. Actually making your own Thanksgiving feast is so fun and so rewarding. The first thing you need to do is decide what you're gonna make. From there, you make the grocery list, then you do your shopping, and then you can plan out each day before Thanksgiving. If you make lists and prep, you will have so much fun. Pen and paper are definitely your friend. Good luck. You can totally do this. I'm gonna go ahead and assemble the breakfast casserole. I have a buttered baking dish, and I'm gonna add half of the English muffins first. Now I've got some cooked breakfast sausage. This is sage sausage, but it would also be delicious if you used maple sausage. Scrumptious. Okay, I'm spreading that out. Then I'm gonna grab the skillet with the onions and the apples, and I'll add half of that. I use so many apples on Thanksgiving Day, between this casserole, the Thanksgiving dressing, apple pie. I mean, I don't even wanna think about how many apples I go through. Now I have some freshly grated white cheddar. Any cheese works. You can do sharp cheddar, you can do pepper jack, or just plain Monterey Jack. Okay, now I'm gonna do the same thing a second time. Now all that's left is the egg mixture, and I'll pour it really slowly over the top. In the fridge overnight, those English muffins soak up all of this wonderful custard. This is a delicious casserole. I have learned the hard way through the years that if I don't have something ready for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning, my family will eat the Thanksgiving meal before any guests show up. Okay, I'm gonna cover this with plastic wrap. Now Callie, on Thanksgiving morning, this is all you have to do. Take the casserole out of the fridge 20 minutes before cooking, remove the plastic wrap, replace it with foil, and bake it at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Then take the foil off and cook it for another 15 minutes. When it's golden brown and slightly crisp, it's done, and all it needs is a sprinkle of chopped parsley.