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This Gourmet Green Bean Casserole is loaded with tons of Bacon, Gruyère, and Caramelized Onions!!! This is the holy grail of green bean casseroles. And a must make for this holiday season!
Gourmet Green Bean Casserole Recipe
So yeah… I’m totally the jerk bringing you (originally typed brining you… OY!) a green bean casserole recipe 3 days before Thanksgiving. What gives? Well. Here’s the thing... I have been testing this recipe for the last 2 weeks. Yeah. That’s a lot of casserole in mah belly, dude! And they’ve all been good; some better than others. But none of them were “blog worthy”. None of them were worthy of you! See. Going into this holiday season I made a promise to myself. I made a silent vow not to share any “spins on the classics” unless they were perfect. Because there are a ton of green bean casserole recipes floating around these days, ya know? I didn’t want to add to the conversation unless I really had something tremendous to say.
Lucky for us, today I do. Gourmet Green Bean Casserole with Bacon, Gruyère, and Caramelized Onions —> It’s the bee’s knees! The king of casseroles! A conversation piece that’s sure to win you praise and admiration!
Start with fresh green beans!
You’ll blanch them for 4 minutes (and only 4 minutes!), then plunge them into a frigid ice bath. This stops the cooking process and keeps them niiiice and green. We want that!
Next up, make the sauce! This is a two-step process, but so worth every ounce of work. Step one involves frying the bacon, then – in the same pan – caramelizing the onions. The onion part will take around 25 minutes, but holy cow is it worth it! The onions really make this casserole shine, so be sure to start with enough time to let them do their thang. The second step is quite simple and fast! You’re just going to make a white sauce using butter, flour, milk, and cream. Once that mixture thickens up, you’ll add the cheese and some spices. Then mix the creamy sauce with the onions and bacon and garlic – OH BOY! Things are getting really really yummy!
Now you’ll pour this decadent sauce over the green beans…
Add panko…
and bake until it’s golden and bubbling and as close to heaven as a casserole can get.
Ta-da! You did it. It’s time to dig in! Creamy, flavorful, and just all around awesome. This is not your average green bean casserole – that’s fo sho!
I seriously cannot wait to see my family’s reaction to this killer casserole come Thursday! P.S. You making this is at the TOP of the good idea list… so go grab your green beans and gruyere now! xoxo
Gourmet Green Bean Casserole with Bacon, Gruyère, and Caramelized Onions
Ingredients
- 2 pounds Fresh Green Beans, ends trimmed
- 6 slices Bacon, Cut Into 1/4 Inch Pieces
- 4 cloves Garlic, Minced
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 whole Yellow Onions, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- 4 Tablespoons Butter
- 4 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour
- 3 cups Whole Milk
- 1/4 cup Heavy Cream
- 2 teaspoons Salt, or to taste
- 1 teaspoon Freshly Ground Black Pepper, or to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper (optional, but it breaks up the richness quite nicely)
- 8 ounces Gruyère, Grated
- 1 cup Panko Bread Crumbs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F).
- Trim the ends of both sides of the green beans; cut them in half if you prefer the pieces to be bite-sized.
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a rapid boil. Blanch the green beans by dropping them into the boiling water and allowing them to par-cook for 4 minutes. Remove them from the boiling water with a slotted spoon and immediately emerge them into an ice bath (a large bowl of ice cold water) to stop the cooking process. Drain the green beans once they're cool; pat them dry; and set aside.
- Add bacon pieces to a large skillet over medium heat. Cook bacon for 3-4 minutes, or until it's cooked through but not crispy; remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Add the olive oil, thinly sliced onions, and brown sugar to the same pan the bacon was cooked in. Cook over medium-low, stirring occasionally, until the onions have deepened in color and caramelized; about 25 minutes. Stir in garlic and bacon and cook for another 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat and set aside.
- In a separate skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Once it's completely melted sprinkle the flour into the pan and whisk immediately, evenly mixing it into the butter. Cook for a minute or two, then pour in milk and heavy cream. Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the sauce thickens up; about 2 minutes. Stir in salt, pepper, cayenne, and gruyere. Stir constantly until cheese has melted completely into the sauce, then remove pan from heat. Stir the bacon/onion mixture into the cream sauce, mix well to combine.
- Pour sauce over green beans and stir gently to combine. Pour the mixture into an oven-safe casserole dish, then top with panko bread crumbs.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until sauce is bubbling and panko crumbs are golden.
This looks fantastic! I’ve never made green bean casserole but I think things are gonna change!
YESSS!!! I so hope you take the leap 🙂
This casserole is seriously so fantastic!
Thanks, Stephanie! Now all I need is one of your fantastic cocktails and I’m set for this holiday 😉
I do not care for cheese in the green bean casserole. If I leave out the cheese will I need to add more of the sauce or anything else?
Hi Kathleen. I have not made this recipe without the cheese, so I am unsure what the consistency would be like if you omit it. I imagine it will be fine, just slightly less creamy.
Hi there! I’m looking forward to giving this recipe a try but I wanted to know what the serving size is so I have enough for our Thanksgiving dinner. Thanks!
How many servings in this recipe, please?
Why didn’t yo you reply to this? It’s a casserole and supposed to serve a crogd, we all have different size crowds. Will this serve 12?
It’s hard to give a serving size for a side dish as it really depends on your guests and how much they decide to eat. In our home, this serves 5. But for a crowd where guests may only take a tiny potion, it could serve 8, or even 10. I hope that helps!
Do you think you could do the first seven steps the night before (or earlier in the day) and put it in the fridge? And then cook it in the oven when the turkey is almost done cooking?
Hi Fuzzalina. While I’ve never tried doing this, I believe it would work just fine 😉 Please let us know how it turns out! Happy holidays.
I did it and it turned out just fine. I prepared it in the am without cooking it through and took it to my sister’s house later that afternoon and cooked it for a half hour. I didn’t put the topping on until just before cooking.
It was wonderful, everyone was thoroughly impressed. Thanks for the awesome recipe!
I am so happy to hear it, Fuzzalina! Thank you for letting me know 🙂
Happy holidays!
I made this last night and just tasted the sauce, Wonderful! I will be making this for Christmas! Good bye canned cream of mushroom soup!
Hi Lisa. I’m so happy you enjoyed the recipe 🙂 Have a wonderful holiday season.
Is that about 1/4 cup of pimento or roasted red pepper I see in the photo?
Hi Raz. No, there is no pimento or roasted red peppers in this recipe. I think what you’re seeing is the bacon 😉
Has anyone ever doubled this recipe? (Huge family over here!) and if so, how did you modify the cooking times?
I happened to have shredded Gruyere cheese but no bacon, sadly. I made your recipe today for Thanksgiving (last minute change as I couldn’t bear to bring myself to use a canned mushroom soup). I have to say, that without a doubt, that is the most delicious way I have EVER had green beans, in a casserole or otherwise! I will be sure to have bacon on hand next time, but even with out it, it was truly the caramelized onions and the cheese that made this absolutely fabulous. Thank you for all your hard work in perfecting this recipe and posting it – even if it was just three days before! It was JUST IN TIME in my opinion! Fantastic! Thank you and hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving!
Made this today for a Christmas party tomorrow. Added chopped up wild mushrooms and its amaaaaazing!!!!! crunchy green beans, perfectly done. And the caramelized onlions were a perfect pair.
I dont know the crowd tomorrow so I did half gruyere and half mozzarella to make it likeable for a wider palate but would have personally just gone with gruyere only.
Cooked almost done and will add the panko and reheat for 5-10 minutes tomorrow.
I snuck some tastes and its amazing. I will add to my -to!!!
Wow love this recipe, Thanks for posting!
Can I substitute The Who.e Mike for more half and half? It the one thing I forgot at the market
Omg. I’m in love. I made this minus the sugar and with a Keri friendly “bread crumb” topping. It was AMAZING. A-MAZ-ING. man in my again for thanksgiving and every week after.
Sorry, Keto-friendly
I know this is an older post, but several years ago I decided there must be a better “Green Bean Casserole” out there… and here it is. I make this every year now, and it has become a family favorite. Some of our family still make the green bean casserole that is a can dump, but this is far superior.
Can I make the day before??
I made the sauce the night before and put it in the fridge. Next morning, I added a little water and heated the sauce slightly. Mixed it with thawed and drained French-cut green beans. Then, I combined it all and cooked the mixture in the crock pot on low for 4 hours. Just before serving, topped sparingly with crisped French onion strings. It turned out great! We took it to our friends’ Thanksgiving gathering as a dish to pass. Compliments galore!
LOVE not using cans except that just this time, I had no fresh green beans but did have some French style green beans that I really needed to use!
Also, I was making Brachial Almandine Broccoli casserole from an age-old recipe, but I didn’t remember the kind of cheese to use and bought Gruyere cheese $12 worth and got home to find it was supposed to be Gouda! So I went on a search for what to do e the Gruyere, and Voila! A new 5-Star Green bean casserole was created with only one small improvement… Please don’t get mad at me, but I’ve borrowed from two recipes to create what I will now call THE BEST Green bean casserole recipe ever!
For the topping instead of Panko I borrowed Laura Vitale’s crispy fried onions to top off Ashley Manila’s Gruyere Green Bean Casserole