The Woman Behind Green Bean Casserole Created It in 1955. Here’s the Story, Plus the Classic Recipe

Few side dishes are as tied to Thanksgiving as green bean casserole. Creamy, salty, and topped with a crunchy layer of fried onions, it shows up on millions of holiday tables every November, often in the same dish Grandma used.

But unlike many family recipes, this one has a clear origin story. It was created in 1955 in a corporate test kitchen in Camden, New Jersey, by a home economist named Dorcas Reilly.

Here is how one of America’s most famous side dishes came to be, followed by the classic version so you can make it this year.

A Quick Recipe for a Newspaper Story

If you enjoy this kind of thing, Frenz Hub’s 20 Odd American Traditions That Confuse the Rest of the World is worth a read too. In 1955, Reilly was working in the home economics department at the Campbell Soup Company. According to New Jersey Monthly, an Associated Press reporter contacted the company looking for a vegetable side dish built from ingredients most families already had in the pantry. Reilly and her team came up with a simple combination: green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and crispy fried onions.

Reilly called it “Green Bean Bake.” The AP ran the recipe nationally, and it wasn’t originally tied to any holiday. Over time, it found its way onto Thanksgiving tables and stayed there.

From Soup Can to Hall of Fame

The recipe eventually became a fixture on Campbell’s soup can labels. The company has described it as the most popular recipe ever to come out of its kitchen. In 2002, Reilly donated the original recipe card to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio.

Reilly worked at Campbell’s on and off from the late 1940s until 1988 and helped develop many other recipes during her career, including a tuna noodle casserole. When she died in October 2018 at age 92, Food Network and other outlets noted that she always kept the casserole’s ingredients on hand at home, just in case someone asked her to make it. We also covered this angle in Your Thanksgiving Turkey Will Be Juicier When You Rub It With This Before Roasting.

Frenz Hub took a similar look at everyday life in 37 of the Weirdest and Most Unconventional Delicacies in the U.S.. Green bean casserole is part of a whole era of mid-century convenience cooking.

Classic Green Bean Casserole

This is the traditional version most families know. It serves about 6 as a side dish.

Ingredients

• 1 can (10.5 ounces) condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 cups cooked cut green beans (about two 14.5-ounce cans, drained, or 16 ounces frozen, thawed)
• 1 1/3 cups French fried onions, divided

Instructions

• Heat the oven to 350°F.
• In a 1 1/2-quart baking dish, stir together the soup, milk, soy sauce, and pepper until smooth.
• Stir in the green beans and 2/3 cup of the fried onions.
• Bake for about 25 minutes, until hot and bubbling around the edges.
• Stir, then sprinkle the remaining 2/3 cup of onions over the top.
• Bake for about 5 more minutes, until the onions are golden.

Easy Ways to Make It Your Own

For a related read, Frenz Hub has Skip the Checked-Bag Fee This Thanksgiving: 5 Carry-On Suitcases Worth Packing. It pairs well with our earlier story, 9 Recipes Older Women Say They’ll Never Stop Making. The beauty of the original is how forgiving it is. A few popular twists:

• Use fresh beans. Trim and cut about 1 1/2 pounds of fresh green beans, then boil or steam them until just tender before mixing.
• Add cheese. Stir in a handful of shredded cheddar or Parmesan with the beans.
• Add bacon. Crumbled cooked bacon adds a smoky, salty flavor.
• Make it ahead. Assemble everything except the onion topping a day early, cover, and refrigerate. Add a few extra minutes to the baking time, then top with onions at the end.

More than 70 years after Dorcas Reilly created it, green bean casserole is still proof that a simple recipe made from pantry staples can become a tradition.