Fall Gatherings Made Easy: Stovetop Green Bean Casserole Recipe

This thick and creamy warm green bean casserole will even satisfy the pickiest eaters with it’s crispy onion topping and rich and velvety mushroom sauce with tender and firm green beans. It’s great for any fall or winter gathering to warm and fill you and your loved ones up!

This is another partial dump-dinner recipe, where after finishing the first step—the onions—you dump everything else in the pot, except the onions, and cook until done (usually 10-15 minutes).

Recipe Overview

no dairy, no eggs, no wheat, no nuts, no tree nuts, no shellfish, no seafood, no soy, no salt added, no oil added, no sugar added, and no coconut.

The Menu

Maximize Your Mushrooms, Again!

I mentioned some tips in last weeks recipe, Butterflied Mushroom Cacciatore, on how to make the vitamin D levels in mushrooms go from almost 0% to over 100% of the daily value with one simple trick—sunlight.

Want to learn how to hack and maximize other veggies and more?! Subscribe to me on Substack to get exclusive content for free and checkout the article here with 6 hacks.

Why This Recipe for Stovetop Green Bean Casserole?

With holidays coming up, like American Thanksgiving around the corner and Christmas soon after that, I wanted to have some quick and simple healthy sides that are satisfying enough to be more than just side dishes this season.

Green bean casserole is a fall favorite and such a satisfying dish during the winter as well, but it’s usually loaded with ultra-processed ingredients, oils, fats, and other less healthy ingredients. Plus it takes so much time and mess to make the crispy onions and then to mix and bake everything.

This version streamlines the crispy onion process by using a similar technique to how the tender nuggets were made in the Mini Nuggets & Honey-less Mustard Salad recipe. This way we toast the breading before coating the onions in it to save time and avoid having to bake/flip the crispy but still healthy onions. Also, it’s so rich and creamy that even none plant-based eaters will love it!

By cooking on the stovetop we will only be using one single pot, and avoid having to dirty up yet another casserole dish or a pot for the beans, one for the sauce, and one for the onions during the holidays when empty dishware and cookware in the kitchen is at a premium, and the level of effort for washing dishes is at an all-time low.

I still don’t want to call them Dump Dinners, so do you have any ideas for the name of this series of toss-and-go recipes? If so please let me know in the comments or on substack

Blending & Blenders & Grinders

For this recipe, if you buy pre-ground spices and oat flour then you won’t need to grind or blend anything.

If you don’t then a spice grinder is the simplest, but otherwise, just blend the oats/flax/etc. dry in your blender for the onion topping. For the sauce, you can blend the ingredients mixed with one cup of the water from the recipe then add it to the pot.

Stick / Immersion Blender Hack

For stick blenders the sauce remains the same as other blenders (mix with one cup of the water and blend until mixed), but for the crispy onion topping we will do something different.

I’m not sure if it’s really a hack (although it is using it in a way that it wasn’t intended) but we we can use a narrow glass to put our dry ingredients in, and hold it while shaking. Ideally with a flat-bottom, all I had was a round-bottom cup that was closest in width to my stick blender—and also see-through so you can see inside. I’ve used flat-bottomed cups before and it works even better and faster—don’t try this with hard things like dried lentils or peas as most stick blenders won’t have a strong enough motor to get through them.

By shaking the cup as we blend it will help to get a more even blending and ensure that we don’t have any chunks that are too big.

⭐Full Stovetop Green Bean Casserole Recipe⭐

Stovetop Green Bean Casserole

Chef Rob

Quick and easy partial dump dinner for the holidays with creamy mushroom sauce and crispy onion topping

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Course Comfort Food, Dinner, Leftovers, Lunch, Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine American, Canadian

Servings 3 people

Equipment

• 1 Pot
• 1 Spice / Coffee Grinder optional, other blender or even just oat flour will work.

Ingredients

  

FRIED ONIONS

• ½ cup sliced onion
• ¼ cup oats flour
• 2 tbsp flax seed milled/ground
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar again
• 1 tbsp water add more as needed in tiny amounts

GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE

• 3 cups green beans fresh or frozen
• 1 cup button mushrooms sliced and 2 tbsp minced
• 2 tbsp tahini or similar
• 6 tbsp oats powdered
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/16 tsp nutmeg powder optional
• 2 tbsp onion dehydrated optional
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2.5 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• ½ tsp white vinegar
• 3 cups water or more as needed; add slowly in small amounts

Instructions

 

• Note:If you're using fresh green beans it might be worthwhile to blanch them first (boil in water until they turn bright green then quickly cover them in cold water then drain when they are not hot anymore.)

  First, sautee the onions until they begin to caramelize and are no longer giving off a lot of moisture. Deglaze with the apple cider vinegar then add all the dry ingredients for the crispy onions and toast until the powders darken slightly and become aromatic. Add the remaining vinegar, then water, slowly, only adding more when it has all been absorbed. Reserve it all for the crispy onion garnish topping.
  
• Sautee the mushrooms until they are fully cooked then add everything else but the beans and bring it to a boil. Add the beans and reduce the heat a simmer (low to medium-low heat). Cook until the sauce has thickend and the beans are tender but still firm and crisp.

  Serve topped with the crispy onion topping.
  

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🧂If you absolutely must add salt then try to add it to taste, to the top of the food, and in small amounts and only after tasting it first. The same goes for other “less healthy” additions, but the idea should be to try to limit and eventually remove adding them, over time, when you are ready.

After a few weeks of not eating a SAD diet your tastebuds reset and you’ll notice the natural sodium in foods, check out the great article, and subscribe to, Michael Corthell on Substack.

Protips

Perfectly crispy onion topping

• Add the liquid slowly, and only add a small amount more once all the liquid has already been absorbed.
• Mix and stir frequently to ensure the coating gets evenly distributed and doesn’t burn.
• Don’t use too much liquid, it should just be enough to create cluters that start binding to the onions.

Fresh or frozen beans – does it matter?

• I used frozen to show just how simple it can be, but feel free to use fresh beans especially while they are in season until late October to mid-November in most of the Northern Hemisphere.
• Fresh Beans: I recomend pre-blanching fresh beans before starting, this will cut down the cooking time of your beans (to about 5-7 minutes) and make them more firm and vibrant.
• Frozen Beans: Frozen beans are easy, usually cheaper in the off-season, and may be more nutritious since many comparitive studies of fresh and frozen foods are finding similar results as this study from 2015, that said, “overall, the vitamin content of the frozen commodities was comparable to and occasionally higher than that of their fresh counterparts.” Cook them for about 4-7 minutes or until tender but firm.

Don’t forget cooking techniques

• Just because it’s all getting dumped in the pot doesn’t mean there isn’t an order to how you should dump it for the best result.
• Proper recipes should have the ingredients listed in the order you should add them and this recipe is no different. This way you will deglaze with mushrooms before toasting your spices then deglazing before sauteeing the tomatoes and cooking off the tomato paste so it is rich and full-bodied before adding the water and noodles. Even if it takes seconds between it will be better than any other order.

Nutrition Facts Table – Green Bean Casserole

The Science – Sources

Please tell me how it turned out! Did you: try it, like it, hate it, change it, or do something else unexpected???

If I’ve made any mistakes, or something doesn’t make sense, or if you want more/less details, please let me know in the comments.

Stay healthy and nourished!

Chef Robert Leigh.

Fall Gatherings Made Easy: Stovetop Green Bean Casserole Recipe