My husband’s all time favorite Thanksgiving dish is green bean casserole. It is a must have at every Thanksgiving meal. When he became gluten intolerant, I knew I couldn’t deny him this culinary treat, so I set out to make a gluten-free green bean casserole recipe.

True to the Campbell’s creation, our regular green bean casserole came directly from the canned goods aisle at Publix. Sadly though for a gluten-free version I had to ditch the Campbell’s and the French’s products, which meant starting from scratch.

To get started I broke the casserole down into it’s basic parts: green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and fried onions.

Green Beans

Green beans obviously do not contain gluten, so no changes were needed there. You can use fresh, canned, or frozen. Thanksgiving is in November, which means green beans are not on sale and therefore not making it in my casserole. That left me with canned or frozen. They both work well, it’s just a matter of personal preference. My husband prefers canned.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

For the cream of mushroom soup, I learned that Progresso makes a Cream of Mushroom that does not contain gluten. It even goes on sale with coupons, so I was sold. When I make the casserole, I like for the sauce to be thick. When I used Cambell’s Cream of mushroom I would leave out the milk and it turned out perfectly. The Progresso Cream of Mushroom soup had more of a liquid consistency though. There are a couple of solutions to this.

-Make a more liquidy casserole.
-Use half a can of soup.
-Let the soup simmer on the stove top to reduce.
-or… Add cornstarch.

If I have time I like to let it reduce. If I am in a rush I will add cornstarch.

Fried Onions

Fried onions make a green bean casserole what it is.  I have a selection of gluten free flours, so I decided to try out some different combinations to see what worked best.

For the breading, I made different flour mixtures and added a heavy pinch of salt and pepper to each. After making fried onions with all 4 combinations, we decided that equal parts Brown Rice Flour, Tapioca Flour, and Coconut Flour was our favorite. The onions came out crispy, flavorful, and golden brown. The best part is that they are actually really good. We all decided we liked them better than the original version!

You can play around with flours to see what you like best, but I do not recommend using any form of starch: corn, potato, etc. In my experience, the starch causes the onions to clump and not crisp up correctly.

For the onions, I used a mandolin slicer to get them really thin. You may be able to use a knife, but you really want the onions to be paper thin.

Once they are sliced, separate them by hand and then soak them in milk. You will just need enough milk to cover the onions. You can do this in batches to use less milk.

To Make the Onions:

-Make your flour combination

1/2 Cup Brown Rice Flour
1/2 Cup Tapioca Flour
1/2 Cup Coconut Flour
Heavy Pinch of Salt
Pepper

-Slice onions paper thin and separate them

-Soak onions in milk for a couple of minutes

-Heat oil in frying pan
-Dredge first batch of onions in flour
-Add to oil once it is heated
-Once the onions start to float, flip them with tongs

-Cook until golden brown
-Repeat for the remainder of onions

You can store them in an air tight container or use them immediately.  This may look tedious, but it is actually pretty quick.

To Make Casserole:

Ingredients:

1 Can Progresso Cream of Mushroom Soup (reduced)
Black Pepper
2-3 Gluten Free Fried Onions
4 Cups Cooked Green Beans

How To Make It:

1.) Combine soup, pepper, 2/3 cup Fried Onions, and green beans in a casserole dish.
2.) Baked at 350° F for 25 minutes
3.) Stir Bean Mixture
4.) Add remaining onions to top of casserole.
5.) Bake for 5 additional minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

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