Tuna Noodle Casserole - Food Wishes

hello this is chef john from food wishes comma with tuna noodle casserole that's right i'm gonna show you how to make what I consider the king of the comfort food casseroles now counting mac and cheese of course and what I love about this recipe besides that it's simple and easy is that it doesn't require the traditional can of cream of mushroom soup but don't worry despite the fact we're not using any processed food in this we're not gonna make it too healthy and this will still have the appropriate amount of creamy decadent goodness like every casserole should so with that let's go ahead and get started by sautéing some onions in some butter set over medium heat along with of course the traditional big pinch of salt and what we'll do is cook these stearing for about 3 or 4 minutes or until they just start to soften up and turn translucent and no we normally don't use a whisk here but since we're gonna be adding milk and eventually whisking this into a sauce a whisk does make sense and then what we'll do once we feel like those onions have sauteed enough is go ahead and stir in some flour to create a roux ro UX which as you may know is a paste made from butter and flour used to thicken a sauce and we'll want to cook that stirring for about three minutes or so just to take the raw edge off the flour and we are still on medium heat but if you think you need to turn it down just a little go ahead since we really don't want this mixture browning and take it out a lot of color so adjust that flame down if need be okay that's just you cooking and then what we'll do once our onion earu is cook for about three minutes or so is go ahead and pour in all our milk and no not gradually while whisking and that's because our roux is hot and our milk was very cold and as you've probably heard me say many times before cold milk hot roux no lumps which means we can just dump it all in and then start whisking and you'll see by the time this comes up to a simmer and fully thickens it will be beautifully smooth and lump free or your money back oh and speaking of bringing this up to a simmer once we add the milk we want to crank this up to medium-high and we will cook it while stirring often until it comes up to a simmer and generally when you're working with a roux based sauce it will be as thick as it's gonna get once it starts to simmer which is what I was looking at right here and as soon as that happens what we'll do is turn off the heat and whisk in some shredded white cheddar cheese alright maybe something a little bit on the mild side but of course as dealer's choice and that's it with the heat off we'll just stir that in and believe it or not our very simple white sauce is done and we'll simply reserve that until needed and move on to our ignorance which for the hundred and fifteen year in a row has won the award for most beautiful noodle thanks to their beautiful sunny golden color and what we need to do is boil those and some generously salted water for 5 minutes or 1 minute under whatever the cooking directions on the package are and then what we'll do once those are almost cooked is drain them very very well and we'll transfer those into a nice big mixing bowl and we will transfer in our still very hot sauce and we'll give all that a quick mix before we add the rest of our ingredients oh and the reason that sauce was still hot is because we're pretty good at multitasking so we had our water coming up to a boil while we made our sauce and then what we'll do once we've given that a quick mix let's go ahead and add our tuna which for me was three five and a half ounce cans of tuna packed in olive oil that I crumbled up and yes that is kind of a lot you could probably do this with two cans but I'm on that new high carb high protein diet so I went up with three and then we'll follow that up with a cup of green peas which were previously frozen but then thawed and very well drained and then we'll finish this up by seasoning with some salt as well as a few shakes of the cayenne and a nice big pinch of freshly ground black pepper and then last but not least a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce and then we'll give that one final thorough mixing and if that mixture looks a little too thin to you it's not okay if your mixture is thick now by the time you bake it it's gonna be way way too thick so I really do think we want to start out with something that looks like this and then once that set we'll go ahead and transfer that into a buttered baking dish your standard nine by 13 inch casserole dish to be exact and once that set we are down to one optional but mandatory component and that would be making our crumb topping which for me will feature some bread crumbs a whole bunch of freshly grated parmesan plus a couple tablespoons of olive oil or melted butter okay whatever you're into and we'll take a spoon and give that a mix and we'll keep mixing until it sort of looks like wet sand and once that's been mixed we'll go ahead and dump that on top and spread that over nice and evenly and I'm using bread crumbs here because they usually have those around and I usually don't have potato chips around but if you do crushed up potato chip crumbs might just make for the best topping for this but anyway you decide I mean you guys are after all the Sally Bowles of your casseroles and since life is a cabaret you get to use whatever you want but no matter what you use once those are spread over I like to poke them down just a little bit with the side of the spoon and that's it our tuna noodle casserole is now ready to transfer into the center of a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes or so or until the top is beautifully golden brown and we can see a little bit of bubbling going on around the edge and that's it we should probably let that sit and rest for about 10 minutes before grabbing a spatula and cutting out a nice square and just to make me feel a little bit better promise me you'll have this with some kind of green salad on the side but anyway we'll serve that up whoops I lost a noodle don't worry I got it and then once we have that plated up I like to garnish this with absolutely nothing okay just grab a fork and dig in to what I think is just an absolutely incredible profoundly comforting and very very satisfying casserole okay it's kind of decadent without being too heavy and because our sauce wasn't too thick when we put this together I think the texture on this is just right and speaking to texture having all those crispy cheesy crumbs on the top doesn't hurt but anyway that's it my very basic straightforward take on the tuna noodle casserole and earlier I said this was the king of the comfort food casseroles except for maybe mac and cheese but you know what if you give me a choice between the two I'm gonna pick this one every time right basically this is mac and cheese with benefits which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a principle written recipe and much more info as you and is always enjoy you

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 440,823

Rating: 4.954752 out of 5

Keywords: tuna, noodle, casserole, mac, cheese, baked, chef, john, food, wishes, cooking, recipe, easy

Id: zd0UMZ1btKc

Length: 7min 3sec (423 seconds)

Published: Fri May 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/auntielife123]

This makes me so nostalgic

[u/onhesmos]

I hate his voice and I cant stop hearing at the same time.

[u/clybourn]

I would add some mushrooms. Sautéd or canned.

[u/goldendragon775]

I do one similar using macaroni or rotini pasta. The sauce is magical like that and the flavor is amazing if you don’t discard the oil your tuna is packed in.