Tonight is the 2-hour season 6 premiere of AMC’s Mad Men. WOOHOO!! To celebrate the premiere, Alex’s brother and his wife are hosting a dinner party.
I wracked my brian all week trying to think of what dish to bring that’s from the Mad Men era. Luckily my pal Maddie, who is much wiser than I, suggested Green Bean Casserole. This was a perfect idea since this American classic was invented by Campbell’s in 1955. Plus I think that Campbell’s was one of Don Draper’s accounts in the show. Although I loved the idea of bringing this dish to the party, I dreaded the thought of bringing something that was made from condensed soup and canned beans. So I decided to make this classic from scratch, with my own homemade cream of mushroom sauce.
After reading this entire recipe you might think to yourself “Gee, this sounds like it’ll take a long time.” I’m not going to lie, it DOES take a long time. It took my almost an hour to make the entire dish from start to finish, which is significantly longer than just using condensed soup. But I promise you it is worth it. The sauce was so delicious, I kept spooning it into my mouth.
Green Bean Casserole
8 servings
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
3 shallots, sliced
3 cups mushrooms, diced (I used baby bellas)
1/2 cup sherry wine
2 tbsp flour
3 cups milk
2 tbsp soy sauce
8 cups green beans
2 cups French Fried onions, divided
Salt and Pepper to taste
1. Heat oil and butter in a non-stick pan over medium heat. Add shallots and slowly cook them until they are caramelized, about 8-10 minutes. Don’t try to rush this process by cooking it over high heat, the caramelization that you get from cooking it low and slow adds so much depth in flavor.
2. Deglaze pan with sherry wine and add mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms are soft, about 5 minutes.
3. Once the mushrooms are cooked down, stir in flour and cook for another minute.
4. Slowly add the milk 1/2 cup a time, allowing the sauce to thicken before adding more milk. This process takes time and you have to constantly stir/nurture the sauce so it doesn’t clump up. It took me about 30 minutes for this step.
5. Once the sauce is done, take it off the heat and add soy sauce. Then add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Stir in green beans and 1 cup French Fried onions. Pour into casserole dish. Top with reaming onions. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. You can prepare this dish ahead of time and keep it in the fridge. If you do this, you will have to up your bake time to 35-40 minutes.
Nutritional information provided by eRecipe.com
Chew me! 
My future son-in-law is American, we are Canadian – and he asked for a green bean casserole at Easter. I am like what, what the heck is that. So a hunting I went, of course on-line and was shocked that this is a big deal of a dish. Of course I had to try one for him, now mine sure didn’t look like yours. And no I didn’t use your recipe, wish I had, will next time. But who knew, he didn’t complain, the rest of the family didn’t like, he gobbled his up, I think he was being polite. Thanks for my next time recipe, take care.
The first time I ever made this was just 2 years ago! My now husband LOVES this dish. Then I continued to make it for dinner a couple of times because it was soooo easy to make (great for one of those lazy days). But then I decided to kick it up a notch by making my own sauce, and now I love the dish too!
I’d like to invite you to join our site http://www.erecipe.com . I really enjoy your blog and recipes and I think the over 8,000 unique daily visitors to eRecipe will too.
By joining eRecipe, we will provide the Nutrition Facts for every recipe you post in which you could customize and add to your blog. Viewers need and love to know the nutritional facts. Its a free service that we offer to blogs and recipes we really love. It looks professional and your members will love it.
Simply visit http://www.erecipe.com or contact me at michelle@erecipe.com. We look forward having you in our network!
Hi Michelle,
I just signed up for erecipe.com and submitted this recipe for Green Bean Casserole! Thanks for the invitation!
We love your pictures and recipes, they are mouth watering. Would love for you to share them with us at foodieportal.com. We are new but at foodieportal.com we are not photography snobs, we are just foodies.
I just signed up for foodieportal.com! However, I keep getting a “security error” when I try to upload images?
Your food photos are amazing. You can share your mouth watering photos with us at foodienewz.com and your photos published on FoodieNewz without any editorial review.