🥓💚😍 Smothered Bacon Green Bean Casserole features fresh green beans smothered in a savory mushroom sauce that’s topped with cheese, crumbled bacon, and fried onions. A truly decadent, cheesy casserole, it’s perfect for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or when you’re craving a comfort food side dish. No canned or condensed soups in sight!
Green Bean Casserole with Cheese and Bacon
Ditch the canned beans and condensed soup. This cheesy bacon green bean casserole is made completely from scratch with fresh ingredients and is still packed with flavor!
Featuring crisp-tender green beans, a creamy mushroom sauce, gooey cheese, crispy fried onions, and savory crumbled bacon, it’s a delicious twist on the classic that’s well worth the extra effort. You can even prep it ahead of time and bake it the day of, making it perfect for holiday gatherings. Trust me. Once your family tastes the bacon surprise, they’ll be begging for seconds (and there won’t be any leftovers to worry about).
Love Green Beans?
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Ingredients You’ll Need for Bacon Green Bean Casserole
Making cheesy green bean bacon casserole is a cinch, and each ingredient is easy to find – if you don’t already have them on hand in your refrigerator or pantry anyway during the holiday season!
Gather the following:
- Green beans – Without a doubt, this is the time to pick up some fresh green beans. As a compromise, you can use frozen green beans that you thaw and drain well if you aren’t going to use fresh. However, I draw the line and cannot suggest canned green beans for this holiday casserole. Apart from their less-than-appealing color, the mushy factor would not be desirable in this baked casserole as they would turn even mushier upon baking.
- Unsalted butter
- Mushrooms (white, cremini, baby portobello) – If you have some mushroom haters in your life, but still want to make this recipe, you can. Read the FAQs below where I address how to do it!
- Garlic cloves
- All-purpose flour – Use a 1:1 all-purpose gluten-free flour if needed
- Reduced sodium chicken broth
- Whole milk
- Lite soy sauce – Substitute tamari or coconut aminos to keep your casserole gluten-free. Look for low-sodium options
- Salt and Black Pepper
- Mozzarella cheese – I love using mozzarella in this recipe since its mild flavor doesn’t compete with the savory mushroom sauce or salty bacon. However, white, regular cheddar cheese, or sharp cheddar cheese can be used as well
- French’s Crispy Fried Onions or similar French-fried onions – While you can fry your own onions to an extremely crispy state, it’s more work than I am usually looking for. Rather than actually fry onions, I would consider the panko breadcrumb and Parmesan cheese crunchy topping I use in my Traditional Green Bean Casserole instead. Serves the purpose to add some crunch, but doesn’t involve as much work or grease
- Cooked bacon – Pork or turkey bacon is fine. I would be careful though, not to use a very strongly flavored bacon like applewood or heavily smoked bacon
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Prepare Fresh Green Beans for Green Bean Casserole
When making cheesy green bean casserole with fresh green beans, you must blanch them. Blanching means to partially cook them in boiling water and then submerge them in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Blanching the green beans before adding them to the casserole ensures that they cook completely and maintain a vibrant color.
To prepare green beans for green bean casserole:
- Wash and dry the green beans, then trim the ends. You can halve them as well, if desired.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. While the water boils, fill a large mixing bowl ¾ full with cold tap water and top it off with ice cubes.
- Add the green beans to the pot of boiling water and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes to blanch.
- Scoop out the green beans using a sieve or a slotted spoon.
- Immediately transfer to the ice bath and let sit for 1 minute before draining.
Writing about it makes it sound like a bigger “production” than it really is. Just drop them in a pot of boiling water for 3-4 minutes, and then into an ice bath. Same concept as hard-boiling eggs.
How to Make Cheesy Bacon Green Bean Casserole
After blanching the green beans as instructed in the section above, you can assemble the rest of the casserole. The total time for this recipe is about 45 minutes from start to finish, including blanching the beans.
Step 1: Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the mushrooms and cook on both sides until lightly browned, then add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds.
Step 2: Move the mushrooms to the perimeter, add the flour to the pan, and cook for 1 minute over medium heat to remove the raw flour taste.
Step 3: Add the broth, soy sauce, milk, salt, and pepper. Simmer until the sauce thickens up slightly.
Step 4: Stir in the mozzarella cheese.
Step 5: Add the green beans to a 2-quart baking dish. Spoon the mushroom sauce over top, then sprinkle the green bean mixture with more cheese, the cooked and crumbled bacon, and the fried onions.
Step 6: Bake at 425ºF until the edges of the casserole are bubbling and the topping is golden brown.
Bacon Cooking Shortcut
If you’re making this for a special holiday meal and time and energy are in short supply, there are plenty of fully cooked real bacon options that exist today. Meaning, you just open a package of Hormel Naturals Uncured Fully Cooked Bacon, Hardwood Smoked Fully Cooked Bacon, or another favorite brand, place it on a microwave-safe plate, cover with paper towels and in about 90 seconds it’s ready.
With far less bacon grease to contend with than if you were cooking it from scratch because all of that was largely cooked out beforehand – no bacon drippings this way.
I like to use this type of bacon when I’m adding it into a recipe and don’t have time or desire for a big bacon cooking production. Truly the best shortcut!
Make-Ahead Instructions for Green Bean Casserole
To reduce the amount of prep time you spend in the kitchen when guests are over or about to come over, I highly suggest preparing this bacon green bean casserole ahead of time and storing it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake it.
The entire casserole can be assembled up to the point of baking it up to 24 hours in advance.
Set it on your counter for about 20-30 minutes prior to baking it so you’re not putting a fridge-cold casserole dish straight into the oven which will increase baking time significantly.
Note that the green beans can be trimmed and blanched up to 3 days before assembling the entire casserole too. So if you just want to prepare an element of this recipe in advance, that’s an option too.
Recipe FAQs for the Best Bacon Green Bean Casserole
If you’re not a mushroom fan and want to make this green bean casserole sans mushrooms, that’s fine. It won’t be quite as ‘smothered’ of a green bean casserole but will still be just fine.
Simply omit them; however, you’ll still want to melt butter, add the garlic, add flour to make a roux, add the milk and soy sauce, salt, pepper, and half the cheese to make the melted cheese sauce. You’ll want to keep all of that the same so that you have the cheese sauce to pour over the green beans before topping the the fried onions, more cheese, and baking.
Of course! If you want a bacon-free green bean casserole, I recommend making my traditional green bean casserole recipe instead.
Or, swap out the bacon with ham (cubed or deli sliced), chicken, or turkey. In this sense, if you have leftover holiday ham, turkey, turkey breast, or chicken, it’s the perfect way to use it up!
Follow my slow cooker green bean casserole recipe instead of this one if you want to bust out your Crockpot. That recipe also includes bacon but has been tested specifically for the Crockpot.
If your green bean bacon casserole is soggy or mushy, likely it that means you didn’t cook the mushroom sauce for long enough. You need to let the sauce simmer for a few minutes on the stove after adding in the flour to thicken it up.
The other options may mean that you used frozen green beans (or canned) and they weren’t properly drained or water leached out during the baking process. Or potentially you just needed to bake the casserole another 5 minutes or so.
What Goes With Bacon Green Bean Casserole?
Smothered Bacon Green Bean Casserole
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound fresh green beans, trimmed and halved if desired
- Ice + water
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- 8 ounces sliced white mushrooms, brown button, cremini, or baby portobello may be substituted
- 3 to 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
- ¼ cup whole milk, half-and-half may be substituted; 2% or skim milk not recommended
- 2 tablespoons lite soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- ¾ cup French fried onions
- 4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425F and spray a large 2 to 3-quart casserole dish (a 9×9 or 9×13-inch pan may be used) with cooking spray; set aside.
- Blanching the Green Beans – Fill up a medium to large stockpot (big enough to hold the green beans) so that it has about 1 inch of water in it and bring to a boil over high heat.
- Add the beans, cover with a lid, turn the heat down to medium-low, and simmer for about 4 minutes to blanch the green beans. Tip – Prep your ice bath now while the beans are blanching by adding about 3 or 4 cups of ice cubes to about 3 cups water in a large bowl.
- After blanching the beans, using a kitchen tongs or slotted spoon, remove the blanched beans from the boiling water and add them to the ice bath; let sit while you make the mushroom sauce.
- Mushroom Sauce – To a large skillet, add the butter, and heat over medium-high heat to melt.
- Add the mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes; stir and flip nearly continuously.
- Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute; stir continuously.
- Using a rubber tipped spatula, move the mushrooms to the perimeter of the skillet, leaving an open 'hole' or area where you can now sprinkle the flour.
- Roux – (Making a roux means you are cooking flour with butter, which later thickens the sauce). After sprinkling the flour, allow it to. mix with the butter in the bottom of the skillet, and stir it a bit so it forms a clumpy paste. Allow it to cook for 1 minute, or until light tan in color and thickened.
- Stir the roux and mushrooms together.
- Add the reduced sodium chicken broth, milk, lite soy sauce, salt, pepper, and simmer uncovered for about 3 to 5 minutes, or until the mixture begins to thicken slightly.
- Add 1/2 cup cheese, and stir to combine until melted.
- Assembly – Remove the beans from the ice bath and evenly place them in the prepared baking dish. If desired, you can quickly blot them off once they're in baking dish with paper towels or a clean kitchen towel to remove excess moisture.
- Evenly pour the mushroom cheese sauce over the green beans.
- Top with the remaining 1/2 cup cheese.
- Evenly scatter the French's Crispy Fried Onions (or a similar product).
- Evenly top with the cooked and crumbled bacon. Bacon Tips – If you’re making this for a special holiday meal and time and energy are in short supply, I recommend fully cooked real bacon strips. So just open a package of Hormel Naturals Uncured Fully Cooked Bacon, Hardwood Smoked Fully Cooked Bacon, or another favorite brand, place it on a microwave-safe plate, cover with paper towels and in about 90 seconds it’s ready to chop and sprinkle.
- Baking – Bake the casserole uncovered for about 20 minutes, or until the cheese has melted, and the fried onions and bacon looks a bit more crisped.
- Serving and Storage – Serve immediately or at room temp. Extra casserole will keep airight in the fridge for up to 5 days, reheat gently in the microwave, noting you will not likely achieve the crispy top again with any leftovers and reheating. I don't recommend freezing this recipe as the crispy fried onions will turn soggy upon freezing/thawing and the green beans will take on a mushy texture.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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