I’m in the mood for a little nostalgic comfort food. We’ve really had a lot going on the past couple of weeks and when I find myself in these situations, I want comfort food. To me comfort food is often the things that I grew up with. It reminds me of familiar flavors, warm kitchens, and family. It doesn’t have to be fancy, or particularly healthy; but it does need to be good. Today I’m sharing what we call, Dad’s Casserole.
I think this is called ‘Dad’s Casserole’ because of the various casseroles we had growing up, this one came from my dad’s arsenal. It wasn’t because he made it every time we had it. It’s high up on my comfort list with egg noodles, ground beef, corn, a casserole staple of cream of mushroom soup and gooey bites of American cheese.
Here’s what you need:
Start by browning a pound and a half of hamburger with a diced up onion.
Before we mix everything up, the only other steps you need to take are to cook the egg noodles – about a minute under the package directions drain and rinse; cut the cheese up into chunks; open the cans, and drain the corn.
Add the ground beef to the pot you boiled the noodles in.
Pour in the corn and cream of mushroom soup.
Mix it together and then add the cheese. You can see the size of the cheese chunks I left here. I don’t like it to melt in, I prefer to get bites of gooey cheesiness.
Mix everything together and then divide it up into casserole dishes. When I was a kid, my mom- who grew up in a family of 10 kids and never quite figured out cooking for 4 – just baked it in the pot she boiled the noodles in! And if your pot is oven safe, no reason not to do that. I divided this up into some individual foil pans, a foil bread pan that serves two, and small casserole dish. The foil pans all were wrapped in aluminum foil and popped in the freezer. I can thaw them in the fridge overnight before baking.
When you are ready to bake this, cover, and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. When I bake the small pans, I cook at 325 degrees.
Dig right in.
And enjoy!
- 8 oz of egg noodles, cooked a minute less than package directions, drained and rinsed in cold water
- 1 ½ lb ground beef
- 1 small onion, diced
- 2 cans corn, drain
- 3-4 cans cream of mushroom soup
- ¼-1/2 lb American cheese, diced
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Brown ground beef and onion together until beef is cooked an onion is soft.
- In the same pot you used to cook the noodles, add the drained noodles, ground beef mixture, corn and cream of mushroom soup. Stir together. Add the cheese and stir.
- Pour into casserole dish.
- Cover and bake for 50 minutes. If using a small pan (1 qt or less), bake at 325 degrees.
- FREEZER DIRECTIONS: Place in foil pans before baking. Cover tightly with foil and freeze. When you are ready to serve, thaw overnight in the fridge. Bake according to directions above, adding 5-10 minutes (depending on pan size, because it will be cold form the fridge).
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