Casseroles don’t get enough credit. People are all about one-pot meals and easy dinner hacks, but when you utter the word “casserole,” they picture a Pyrex baking dish filled with beige mush prepared by a corner-cutting grandma who still cooks with a Virginia Slim dangling from her lips. I am a proud Millennial (an old one, but stay with me here) and I think casseroles are great—tuna noodle casserole in particular. It’s creamy and satisfying and probably the second best way to turn a can of tuna into dinner (niçoise salad being the first—see, I can be a food snob, too). But casseroles are only as good as their ingredients. That’s why we rounded up all the components you need to make the best tuna noodle casserole this side of the 1970s.
If you use crummy tuna, you’re gonna have a crummy tuna noodle casserole. Simple as that! Given that your canned tuna will be marinatin’ in bubbly, hot cream of mushroom soup, you need a good, firm, meaty tuna. American Tuna with Sea Salt is just the stuff. “This tuna doesn’t taste like it’s packed in water so much as it tastes like it was packed in the natural juices of the fish itself,” Sporked contributor Danny Palumbo wrote. “It’s a really fresh, excellent product.” Most importantly, it doesn’t taste like a can! Nothing ruins a casserole like can.
During our cream of mushroom soup taste test, I could not stop eating this soup—and that’s saying something when you have to taste, like, 12 different varieties of cream of mushroom soup. The garlic flavor gives it a little extra “oomph” without causing it to stray too far from classic Campbell’s cream of mushroom territory. This is the casserole binder you know and love, but just a little bit tastier and better.
A lot of people use frozen peas in their tuna noodle casserole, but ours is going to be just as good with only pantry ingredients. That’s cool, right? These Garden Variety peas from Kroger are plump and firm and taste fresher than any other canned peas we tried. These will add lovely little pops of sweetness to an otherwise salty casserole.
If you’re giving your casserole a bread crumb topping, Trader Joe’s onion salt is a really easy way to turn unseasoned bread crumbs into seasoned ones. It’s not just granulated onion and salt, see. It’s also got dehydrated green onion, chives, and some granulated garlic, too. It’s a real all-in-one hero of a seasoning blend and it’s perfect for most casseroles.
Full disclosure: We’ve yet to taste test egg noodles here at Sporked, but if you’re a frequent reader, you’re probably aware that we really like Great Value products. They taste good. They’re cheap. And they’re sold at Walmart, so they’re (very) available nationwide. Basically, we’re willing to guess that they make egg noodles that are worthy of the ultimate tuna noodle casserole.
Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks.
Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown.
What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction.
Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home.
Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.
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Gwynedd Stuart
Justine Sterling
Kota Lee
Danny Palumbo
