Tuna Noodle Casserole - Redux
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Author Notes: For some reason last night I had the sudden realization that tuna noodle casserole - that classic piece of Americana and staple of Midwestern church basement potlucks - is technically a seafood pasta dish. This struck me as hilarious, and I felt I had to submit a recipe. I've updated it, swapping out the canned soup for a homemade sauce with some herbs and laced with sherry. And I recommend using oil packed tuna, which I've only recently discovered, and which has much better texture and flavor. - fiveandspice - fiveandspice
Food52 Review: This is not your mother's tuna noodle casserole from the sixties! With some simple steps, fiveandspice takes this homey classic into a whole new league. It is hard to imagine how good this really tastes until you just make it. The butter, fresh mushrooms, shallot, fresh herbs, lemon zest, and sherry contribute to this cast of characters to make stars out of tuna noodle. The garlic panko topping adds a dramatic finish. Brilliant. Bravo, fiveandspice! - Sagegreen
Serves 4
- 5 1/2 tablespoons butter, divided
- 1 cup sliced shiitake mushrooms
- 1 cup diced portobello mushrooms
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 1 shallot, diced
- 1 celery stalk, diced
- 1/2 tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme, minced
- 1 tablespoon minced chives
- 1/4 cup dry sherry
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 cup milk (whole)
- 1/2 cup chicken stock
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 2 cans oil packed tuna, drained
- 8 ounces egg noodles, cooked until al dente and drained
- salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup panko
- Preheat your oven to 350F. In a large sautee pan, heat 1 Tbs. of butter over medium-high until foaming. Stir in mushrooms and cook until mushrooms have given off all of their liquid and cooked through (10 or so minutes). Season lightly with salt and pepper, transfer to a bowl and set aside.
- Add another 1/2 Tbs. butter to the frying pan, then cook onion, shallot and celery together for about 5 minutes, until softened. Stir in the chopped herbs and the sherry and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir the mushrooms into this mixture, then set this aside.
- In a saucepan, heat 3 Tbs. of butter over medium-high until foaming. Stir in the flour to make a roux and cook for about 2 minutes. Then whisk in the milk and chicken stock, bit by bit, to make a smooth sauce. Cook, stirring, until just slightly thickened (another minute or two). Then add the lemon zest and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Flake the tuna and combine the tuna, the white sauce, the mushroom-onion mixture, and the noodles all together. Grease and 8X8 inch baking pan and transfer the casserole mixture into it.
- In a small pan, melt the last Tbs. of butter. Stir in the minced garlic and the panko breadcrumbs and cook, stirring, until the panko is golden brown. Sprinkle this all over the casserole. Put the casserole in the oven and bake until it is bubbly, about 30 minutes. Serve! (And if you are in a church basement, you might have to throw together a reduxed jello salad as well!)
- This recipe is a Community Pick!
- This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Mushrooms
- This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Seafood Pasta
Tags: American, casserole, comfort food, hot, travels well
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11 days ago Pat in SoCal
Just tripled this for my bookclub dinner. Very nice and well recieved. I made 2/3 with tuna and the other third with chopped artichoke bottoms for a quasi-veggie version...which everyone loved! You could easily use veg or mushroom broth to be fully veggie. Next time I will probably make the bechamel a little looser for a creamier finished product....but that's just a personal preference. Thanks for a great and versitle recipe.
11 days ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
That's great! Glad it went over well. I like the suggestions for the additional veggies.
about 1 month ago Waterobin
I'm in my 71st year and still hold a hate for my mother's tuna-noodle cassarole made with canned cream of mushroom soup and topped with crushed potato chips. However, this recipe may get me to loosen up, what with all the nice mushrooms, sherry and lemon. Who says "an old dog . . .?"
about 1 month ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Here's to loosening up! ;-)
4 months ago Risa B
This looks great! Do you think I could make it a day ahead and heat it up in the oven before dinner?
4 months ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Yes, I think that should work fine.
4 months ago adele93
how many grams in total for the 2 cans of oil packed tuna?
4 months ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
I used two 5 oz. cans, sooo, let's see, I think 5 oz. is around 140g, so total would be between 280-300ish grams.
4 months ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Of course, that's un-drained. No idea how many grams of tuna it actually is once it's drained. I didn't measure that.
4 months ago adele93
thank you
4 months ago SMSF
This is a great take on a classic! I added some leftover smoked ham that I had on hand - yum!
4 months ago SMSF
To clarify: I used the smoked ham instead of tuna - the sauce sounded so good for a ham-noodle casserole, and it was!
4 months ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Sounds awesome!
6 months ago rhubarb_season
Hands down, best tuna noodle dish I have ever had! I added some frozen peas on my boyfriends request and they fit in nicely. Thank you for the fantastic recipe!
6 months ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
So glad it worked out for you!
6 months ago Nancy D Neilson
I hope this turns out ok without mushrooms. I hate mushrooms!
6 months ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Hmm, I think it will be quite different without mushrooms since they add a lot of flavor, but I can't imagine it being bad without them, just different! And, since you don't like mushrooms, you wouldn't like all that flavor they lend anyway!
10 months ago SaltyLips
Greetings from Argentina!
Here we gave it a try... http://www.saltylips.com...
Thanks for sharing :)
10 months ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
That is SO cool! Thanks for sharing!
about 1 year ago Locomoco
I made this last night and finally got a chance to use fresh thyme and rosemary from my windowsill for this fabulous recipe. Lemon zest is freakin' genius! Shamelessly this serving-for-4 almost didn't survive the night between the two of us. My husband love, loves this. Next time only thing I'll do different is double the roux -- cause we're sauce crazy like that .
about 1 year ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
No shame in being sauce people. :) Glad you liked it!
over 1 year ago janedans
I'm 76, but i love this dish (no muchrooms) my grandmother topped this with leftover mashed potatoes (firm) I like it better than panko
over 1 year ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Thank you! Love the sound of mashed potato topping! It's like tuna casserole meets shepherd's pie. Yum!
over 1 year ago SKK
Had this again last night and it is divine. One of the things I love about this recipe is it is also easy to add more vegetables if you want without chaning anything. This is such a great recipe and thanks for sharing it!
over 1 year ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Thank you!! I'm so thrilled to hear that!
over 1 year ago Dr. Smokey
This was so good I blogged about it! Thanks for the recipe!
http://chezsmokey.blogspot...
over 1 year ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
That's so cool! Thanks for sharing!
over 1 year ago BlueKaleRoad
We had this for dinner and all loved it! I doubled the recipe and didn't have sherry, so I substituted a combo of lemon juice and white wine. My husband and sons were delighted to have leftovers the next day, too. I'll be making this again soon!
over 1 year ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Thank you!!! I'm so completely psyched you guys liked it! I'm just itching to have the chance to make your delicious sounding broccoli-apple soup. It will be happening very soon!
over 1 year ago BlueKaleRoad
I hope you enjoy the soup! :)
4 months ago adele93
i like the idea of lemon juice and white wine, i was just wondering if you remember the ratio/quantities that you used?
over 1 year ago sophieDC
I made this casserole tonight and it was really tasty! Cooks should now, however, that you might feel like you've used every pot and tool in the kitchen. I only used 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs and it was more than enough.
over 1 year ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
I'm happy to hear you liked it! And thanks for letting me know! It's so true, it uses kind of a lot of pots. I'm one of those people who creates a total catastrophe in the kitchen, just grabbing everything I need, rather than trying to streamline. However, a bunch of people had a discussion on a different thread here and figured out great ways to streamline the pan usage, including using a smallish Dutch oven for the sauce, that you then stir the tuna, mushrooms, noodles, etc, into and use for baking. And, using the same pan for the breadcrumbs as you did for the mushrooms and onions. (You could even do all of that in the Dutch oven, if you ordered everything right!).
over 1 year ago jlhogan
This is a fantastic recipe. Tuna casserole is my husband's favorite comfort food so I'm always looking for tasty recipes that don't include cream of mushroom soup. This was really flavorful--the fresh herbs are genius. I added some frozen peas right before baking. I also added some grated cheddar to the white sauce because my husband's platonic idea of tuna casserole includes cheese, but next time, I think I'll skip--the sauce was very good as is. Finally, I didn't have any sherry so i used white wine. It was fine, but next time, I will make the trip to buy some sherry.
over 1 year ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
I'm so happy you guys liked it so much! Thank you for letting me know!
over 1 year ago Adelucchi
The tuna casserole was beautiful as it came out of the oven. The flavour was a mystery to me. It
had an Asian taste. Can't figure out why. Actually had a" ginger" taste. Any idea what happened?
We enjoyed the dish even with it's surprise taste.
over 1 year ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Hmmm. That's a total mystery to me too!
over 1 year ago Adelucchi
Just finished this recipe for dinner tonight. It was a pretty intense preparation. Much more than the canned soup version which I have not prepared for at least 25 years!! Already the results are in- the aroma is great so says my husband who is waiting patiently for the serve moment. I'll let you know our final thoughts later.
Thanks again for bringing back pleasant memories. Maybe I'll work on the jello!
over 1 year ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
Thanks Adelucchi! I hope the end results met with approval! And, if you come up with a jello salad redux, please do let us all know!
about 2 years ago VanessaS
Made this for dinner last night and it was a hit! I didn't have enough fresh mushrooms on hand, so I used some peas to get to the same volume of vegetables. Love the rosemary in it!
about 2 years ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
I'm so glad to hear you liked it VanessaS! And the peas sound like a delicious - and totally classic - addition. Thanks for the feedback! :)
over 2 years ago StephAngle
What size cans of tuna do you use? Chunk light or Albacore?
over 2 years ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
5 oz. Cans. I use the kind packed in olive oil. But, really you could use any type you prefer. But isn't chunk light environmentally better?
over 2 years ago emmanation
This was so delicious. I had it ready for some friends when they got home from a ski trip, and it was perfect - comforting and filling and interesting enough to make me proud to serve it.
I did have to make a couple of substitutions because I apparently wasn't paying attention in the grocery store. I used fresh bread crumbs instead of panko and parsley instead of chives. Still, it was fantastic. I uploaded a couple of pictures - the breadcrumb switch is probably pretty obvious.
over 2 years ago fiveandspice
Emily is a trusted source on Scandinavian Cuisine.
So glad to hear you and your friends enjoyed the casserole! Your substitutions sound tasty! (also I'm totally jealous of the idea of their ski trip.)