Bacon and Gruyère Green Bean Casserole Recipe (2024)

Here in the Midwest, this recipe has one serious mistake. (Insert smiley face icon here!) This is the one time of the year many of us ever eat/have in our kitchen those very processed things called "French Fried Onions." Ritz crackers? Bread crumbs? Why even bother to make this!?!

My mother's recipe, in Ohio 50 years ago, did not contain canned soup or canned mushrooms or ritz crackers. It was made from scratch with fresh mushrooms, fresh frenched string beans, a cream sauce made with cheddar cheese, no bacon, and crunchy water chestnuts. A delicious recipe, that the food companies ruined so no one even remembers what the original was! Ms. Shulman has gotten us most of the way back to the original. Thank you, but I'll still make my mother's version.

I'd cook the component parts the day before, but assemble it just before cooking on the day. If you assemble it a day before, there's a likelihood that the acid in the sauce will adversely change the texture and color of the beans.

I've done it both ways - assembled the day before and assembled the day of. When I did it the day before, so much liquid had seeped into the bottom of the dish. It was a watery mess. What I find works best is to cook all the ingredients individually the day before and then assemble the morning of.

And it's simply wonderful. I tested this for thanksgiving day and it's going on the menu right next to the bacon and Brussels sprouts!

I admit to a major substitution: nobody in my family really likes green beans, but most of us like broccoli, so I use broccoli instead of green beans. The casserole is still a delicious side dish. No bacon -- we have vegetarians -- and I do use french fried onions, however the creamy, cheesy sauce rather than gelid gray canned soup makes this one of the most popular side dishes on the table.

This dish was the hit of our holiday dinner. I think it tasted even better the next day. The next time I make this, I plan to prepare it the day before, let it sit in the fridge overnight, and then bake it off the day of, which will give the flavors even more time to meld.

Any thoughts on making this ahead the night before?

Great recipe! I made with following variations: deglaze shallots and mushrooms with healthy splash of vermouth to capture caramelized bacon; admixture of parmesan with gruyere cheeses; panko for bread crumbs - sprinkled on dry and topped with melted butter. Wonderful!!

This was a great dish for those of us who did not grow up on green bean casserole and for those that did.

I've tried many, many different versions of this casserole made from scratch with higher end ingredients. None of them are nearly as tasty as the original made with Campbell's mushroom soup (no other brand), frozen french cut string beans, and canned fried onions (what bread crumbs?)

I made this for Thanksgiving and couldn't wait to make it again for Christmas. It's way, way better and more refined than the canned soup recipe, but somehow still satisfies my craving for it. I melted the butter for the breadcrumbs with a smashed garlic clove, but otherwise stuck to the recipe. Like others noted, I can only get crème fraîche in a 7 oz container, but that amount was sufficient.

It wouldn't be the same. A better substitution for creme fraîche is sour cream.

This was delicious -- I "veganized" it. No bacon. Used all non dairy products --Earth balance non-soy "butter", Califa non-dairy Heavy cream and Coconut plain unsweetened yogurt. And non-dairy snoked gouda for the gruyere. Also used about a pound of baby bellas. I topped it with seasoned panko and nutritional yeast. It was even better the second day!

I’ve made this several Times successfully and this last year it split! Any ideas what happened?

Delicious but realized later that the what it was missing was Worcestershire.

Love this recipe. Make sure to throughly dry green beans. Add 2 more slices of bacon. Ritz crackers on top are the win.

Minor adjustments for GF and vegetarian folks like me - veggie bacon (yes, it’s a thing) and GF breadcrumbs. Awesome dish!

Reduce the salt

The sauce broke while baking. Any suggestions on how to prevent this from happening would be helpful.

Swap crème fresh with Greek yogurt Layer green beans, mushrooms and shallots, and cheese mixture. Top with Panko.

My children are gluten-free and this works well as a Thanksgiving side dish for us. I sub crushed lay's potato chips for the bread crumbs and it's delicious!

Can I make this ahead of time and freeze?

Low fat sour cream for crème fraiche

I have that blanching the green beans in boiling water for no more than 2-3 minutes rather than 5 minutes leaves the beans with not so much of a mushy consistency after cooking.

Not sure why, but this turned out to be watery and tasteless. I refrigerated the dish for two hours before adding the crumbs and cooking. Because the casserole was cold, I cooked it a little longer. After reading the rave reviews, the result was a surprise.

Add more panko, Broil at the end More bacon

This, but with Samin Nosrat’s herby fried shallots and bread crumbs. Insanely good.