Green Bean Casserole with Fresh Green Beans

Want to turn your fresh green beans into green bean casserole? Look no further. Simple, easy-to-follow recipe for fresh green bean casserole, including French’s fried onions and cream of mushroom soup – coming right up!

Fresh Green bean casserole is one of the most baked, slow-cooked, or skillet-cooked side dish recipes for the holiday season. 

Why you will love making Fresh Green Bean Casserole

Green bean casserole is versatile and can be made with canned, frozen, or fresh green beans (as seen in this green bean side dish recipe) and makes a great leftover to warm up the next day. Plus, the casserole dish allows you to alter it for smaller and larger crowds quite easily.

Now there are a LOT of casserole recipes, but they typically have a cream base, your beans, and a topping. This particular green bean casserole uses FRESH green beans.

Remember – you have to pre-make the beans and cut them, then move on to the casserole assembly. You can also prep this ahead, seal it, and put it in the fridge to be heated the day of.

Casserole Ingredients

This recipe contains no butter, flour, or milk.

• Fresh green beans– Green beans must be cooked before starting this family favorite green casserole recipe. There are many ways, from boiling, pressure cooking, or steaming. This recipe assumes you are starting with tender-crisp green beans.
• Condensed cream of mushroom soup– Undoubtedly, the most famous ingredient in this recipe is the Campbell condensed soup. While the cream of mushroom is the most common, any condensed cream soup flavor would work for the casserole. Suggestions are cream of chicken and cream of bacon.

• Cheddar cheese– Most commonly used cheese that balances green beans is cheddar cheese, but any shredded cheese that you love is a fair substitute.
• French’s fried onions– If looking for the infamous crunchy topping, do not skip French Fried onions, the golden brown crunchy topping that this side dish is most well known for. Breadcrumbs (like a panko bread crumbs mixture) or crunched-up Ruffles chips are often a delicious crunchy topping as well for this homemade version.

How to Make Fresh Green Bean Casserole with Mushroom Soup

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray. Set prepared dish aside.
2. Add green beans to a steamer basket in a pot of water and boil for 8-10 minutes or until tender. If you have another way, you prefer to make your fresh green beans (like a pressure cooker), that is fine too. The goal is to get to where the fresh green beans can be tender and cut. Drain boiling water carefully. While you should make sure green beans are completely drained of water, there is no need to give them an ice water bath to cool.
3. Add steamed green beans to a large mixing bowl, stir in cream of mushroom soup, 1 cup of cheese, and half of the french fried onions. Mix well until all combined.
4. Season green bean mixture with kosher salt and black pepper.

5. Spread into a prepared casserole dish/baking dish and spread evenly.
6. Bake casserole in the preheated oven for a baking time of 30 minutes to warm the fresh green bean casserole recipe through.
7. Top fresh beans with remaining cheese (also, it’s fine to add additional cheese to the cheese topping if wanted) and onions and bake for approximately 5 minutes or until cheese is melted and golden brown. If an even more golden topping is wanted, broil for 2-3 minutes (while watching to ensure no burning).

FAQ’s

Can I Make Holiday Green Bean Casserole in Advance?

Holiday cooking is upon us, and the questions have started – but one of the most common questions I see asked is, “Can I make Green Bean Casserole in Advance?” The short answer is yes!

Green bean casserole is one of the classic side dishes that can be prepped ahead if you are planning on making a casserole version for the holiday table.

The long answer is while you can make this dish and prep the night before, there are a few ways to make sure that your dish stays as fresh as the day of making.

The first thing you have to decide with green bean casserole is what KIND of casserole you are making. Many people grew up with canned green bean casserole that is made with Campbell’s soup and canned greened beans.

This type of recipe is certainly the most well-known and the one you probably ate growing up. And trust me, I am not going to knock it! It’s totally delicious.

But there are other ways to make green bean casserole depending on the type of bean you want to use – fresh, frozen, or canned and if you want to use canned soup or create heavy cream.

Refrigeration and storage for make-ahead green bean casserole

• As with all food, make sure the casserole dish is sealed tightly with foil or an airtight container before the fridge. This keeps smells and tastes out of the food and keeps it as fresh as possible.

Cooking make-ahead green bean casserole

• It’s best to let cold casserole out of the fridge and to room temperature for about 15 minutes to take the chill off. The fridge makes food extra cold, which can make the temperatures off and longer in the oven for warming, resulting in dryer food.
• If you have an opportunity to bring your food closer to a regular cold or room temperature, it will cook a lot more like the original recipe.

Keeping the toppings crunchy for make-ahead green bean casserole

• This classic casserole typically has French fried onions as the crispy onion topping or another bread crumb/cracker toppings. Do not add crispy fried onions to the recipe when prepping ahead of time and putting them in the fridge.
• Instead, add crisp onions and toppings before going in the oven. This will help keep the topping crunchy as the fridge will soften them out.

More Green Bean Casserole Recipes

• Green Bean Casserole in a Slow Cooker – no need to really make green bean casserole the night before if you use a slow cooker. You won’t need an oven or a stovetop; dump your ingredients (using frozen green beans for ease) and pop on low for 5 hours. This is a great side dish recipe to make at the same time as your turkey, so it all ends simultaneously, and a slow cooker helps this recipe stay good and warm.

• Green Bean Casserole from Scratch – This homemade version of the green bean casserole recipe scratches the canned condensed soups and opts for fresh mushrooms, chicken broth, and whole whipping cream for my favorite way to make this classic side. This recipe needs around 15 minutes of preparation, and you could easily cover and store for the next day before adding some French’s, popping them in the oven to warm and finish.

• Green Bean Casserole with Fresh Green Beans – You can certainly prepare this green bean casserole with fresh green beans ahead of time. Just make sure you steam or pressure cook your green beans first, and then the rest is assembly and storage until cooking time.