Tuna Noodle Casserole - Food Wishes
hello this is chef john from food wishescomma with tuna noodle casserole that's
right i'm gonna show you how to makewhat I consider the king of the comfort
food casseroles now counting mac andcheese of course and what I love about
this recipe besides that it's simple andeasy is that it doesn't require the
traditional can of cream of mushroomsoup
but don't worry despite the fact we'renot using any processed food in this
we're not gonna make it too healthy andthis will still have the appropriate
amount of creamy decadent goodness likeevery casserole should so with that
let's go ahead and get started bysautéing some onions in some butter set
over medium heat along with of coursethe traditional big pinch of salt and
what we'll do is cook these stearing forabout 3 or 4 minutes or until they just
start to soften up and turn translucentand no we normally don't use a whisk
here but since we're gonna be addingmilk and eventually whisking this into a
sauce a whisk does make sense and thenwhat we'll do once we feel like those
onions have sauteed enough is go aheadand stir in some flour to create a roux
ro UX which as you may know is a pastemade from butter and flour used to
thicken a sauce and we'll want to cookthat stirring for about three minutes or
so just to take the raw edge off theflour and we are still on medium heat
but if you think you need to turn itdown just a little go ahead since we
really don't want this mixture browningand take it out a lot of color so adjust
that flame down if need be okay that'sjust you cooking and then what we'll do
once our onion earu is cook for aboutthree minutes or so is go ahead and pour
in all our milk and no not graduallywhile whisking and that's because our
roux is hot and our milk was very coldand as you've probably heard me say many
times before cold milk hot roux no lumpswhich means we can just dump it all in
and then start whisking and you'll seeby the time this comes up to a simmer
and fully thickens it will bebeautifully smooth and lump free or your
money backoh and speaking of bringing this up to a
simmer once we add the milk we want tocrank this up to medium-high and we will
cook it while stirring often until itcomes up to a simmer and generally when
you're working with a roux based sauceit will be as thick as it's gonna get
once it starts to simmer which is what Iwas looking at right here
and as soon as that happens what we'lldo is turn off the heat and whisk in
some shredded white cheddar cheesealright maybe something a little bit on
the mild side but of course as dealer'schoice and that's it with the heat off
we'll just stir that in and believe itor not our very simple white sauce is
doneand we'll simply reserve that until
needed and move on to our ignorancewhich for the hundred and fifteen year
in a row has won the award for mostbeautiful noodle thanks to their
beautiful sunny golden color and what weneed to do is boil those and some
generously salted water for 5 minutes or1 minute under whatever the cooking
directions on the package are and thenwhat we'll do once those are almost
cooked is drain them very very well andwe'll transfer those into a nice big
mixing bowl and we will transfer in ourstill very hot sauce and we'll give all
that a quick mix before we add the restof our ingredients oh and the reason
that sauce was still hot is becausewe're pretty good at multitasking so we
had our water coming up to a boil whilewe made our sauce and then what we'll do
once we've given that a quick mix let'sgo ahead and add our tuna which for me
was three five and a half ounce cans oftuna packed in olive oil that I crumbled
up and yes that is kind of a lot youcould probably do this with two cans but
I'm on that new high carb high proteindiet so I went up with three and then
we'll follow that up with a cup of greenpeas which were previously frozen but
then thawed and very well drained andthen we'll finish this up by seasoning
with some salt as well as a few shakesof the cayenne and a nice big pinch of
freshly ground black pepperand then last but not least a few dashes
of Worcestershire sauce and then we'llgive that one final thorough mixing and
if that mixture looks a little too thinto you it's not okay if your mixture is
thick now by the time you bake it it'sgonna be way way too thick so I really
do think we want to start out withsomething that looks like this and then
once that set we'll go ahead andtransfer that into a buttered baking
dish your standard nine by 13 inchcasserole dish to be exact and once that
set we are down to one optional butmandatory component and that would be
making our crumb topping which for mewill feature some bread crumbs
a whole bunch of freshly grated parmesanplus a couple tablespoons of olive oil
or melted butter okay whatever you'reinto and we'll take a spoon and give
that a mix and we'll keep mixing untilit sort of looks like wet sand and once
that's been mixed we'll go ahead anddump that on top and spread that over
nice and evenly and I'm using breadcrumbs here because they usually have
those around and I usually don't havepotato chips around but if you do
crushed up potato chip crumbs might justmake for the best topping for this but
anyway you decide I mean you guys areafter all the Sally Bowles of your
casseroles and since life is a cabaretyou get to use whatever you want but no
matter what you use once those arespread over I like to poke them down
just a little bit with the side of thespoon and that's it our tuna noodle
casserole is now ready to transfer intothe center of a 375 degree oven for
about 30 minutes or so or until the topis beautifully golden brown and we can
see a little bit of bubbling going onaround the edge and that's it we should
probably let that sit and rest for about10 minutes before grabbing a spatula and
cutting out a nice square and just tomake me feel a little bit better
promise me you'll have this with somekind of green salad on the side but
anyway we'll serve that up whoops I losta noodle don't worry I got it and then
once we have that plated up I like togarnish this with absolutely nothing
okay just grab a fork and dig in to whatI think is just an absolutely incredible
profoundly comforting and very verysatisfying casserole okay it's kind of
decadent without being too heavy andbecause our sauce wasn't too thick when
we put this together I think the textureon this is just right and speaking to
texture having all those crispy cheesycrumbs on the top doesn't hurt but
anyway that's itmy very basic straightforward take on
the tuna noodle casserole and earlier Isaid this was the king of the comfort
food casserolesexcept for maybe mac and cheese but you
know what if you give me a choicebetween the two I'm gonna pick this one
every time right basically this is macand cheese with benefits which is why I
really do hope you give this a try soonso please follow the links below for the
ingredient amounts a principle writtenrecipe and much more info as you
and is always enjoy
you
I realize these things are quite subjective, but I’ve always considered this baked tuna and noodle dish to be the king of the comfort food casseroles. Except for maybe mac and cheese, which is sort of in a category by itself. This is the simplest version I know, and probably my favorite. For the fully formatted, printable, written recipe, follow this link: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/280246/chef-johns-tuna-noodle-casserole/ To become a Member of Food Wishes, and read Chef John’s in-depth article about this Tuna Noddle Casserole recipe, follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRIZtPl9nb9RiXc9btSTQNw/join You can also find more of Chef John’s content on Allrecipes: http://allrecipes.com/recipes/16791/everyday-cooking/special-collections/web-show-recipes/food-wishes/