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