What Is a Casserole, Really?

Ah, casseroles. Whether you dread your grandma’s tuna noodle, or shove your siblings out of the way to get the last of the sweet potato, casseroles have a special place on dining room tables and kitchen counters across America. They’re delicious, economical, can accommodate a variety of diets, and are so wonderfully often packed with melted cheese. 

But for how familiar a casserole is, and how common at least one or two are in most American households, there are nuances about the dish that plague the minds of citizens everywhere. Probably. For anyone who can’t sleep, drenched in the anxiety of unanswered questions about casseroles, please reevaluate your sleep habits. Your problem is much deeper than we can address. For anyone who’s ever kinda wondered about the specifics of a casserole but thought, “eh, I’ll look it up later,” we’re here for you! Here are all your casserole questions, answered. 

What is a casserole? 

A casserole is a dish. It’s also a dish. By that, we mean it’s “a particular variety or preparation of food served as part of a meal.” It’s also “a shallow, flat-bottomed container for cooking or serving food.” For our purposes, we’ll sum up a casserole as a single-dish meal that’s baked and served in a vessel of the same name, which comes from the French word for “saucepan.”

This vessel is oven-safe and should be deep and wide enough to hold a good amount of food. Most have handles. Some have lids. All are ready and waiting to receive a delicious casserole mixture and take it to the oven for the next phase of its journey. 

What’s in a casserole? What defines a casserole?

As frustrating as it may be, casseroles are largely up for interpretation. Many would argue that being baked in a casserole dish does not a casserole make. Generally, the key to a casserole is that the ingredients are combined, then baked in a casserole dish (or a similarly oven-proof pan). But many traditional, well-known casseroles do share a few main components. For savory casseroles, these include a protein, a fruit or vegetable, a starch, a cheese, and a sauce or binder. A can of condensed “cream of…” soup is a hugely popular choice for a binder that also loads your food with MSG-tastic umami and salt. Casseroles are also often topped with a salty, crunchy topping such as Ritz crackers, potato chips, or fried onions. 

What types of casserole are there?

The possibilities of the casserole are endless and there are many, many, many types of casserole out there. As we said, casseroles are largely up for interpretation, and you can fit a world of creativity inside of an ovenproof vessel. In addition to main dish casseroles, there are also side-dish casseroles, breakfast casseroles, and dessert casseroles. Allrecipes rounded up their top ten most saved casseroles, which solidified the GOAT status of holiday staples like green bean or sweet potato casserole, weeknight favorites like tuna noodle or chicken and rice casseroles, along with sweet casseroles like bread pudding.

Is lasagna a casserole?

The ingredients in a casserole can be combined by mixing or by layering, so it’d make sense that lasagna is a casserole, as well as baked ziti. Officially, we’ll plead the fifth, but we do encourage you to call into A Hot Dog is a Sandwich and ask them to fight about it.