Name: Tuna Noodle Casserole
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 350 g dried egg noodles or fusilli; 70 g unsalted butter; 300 g chestnut mushrooms, sliced; 1 onion, finely chopped; 3 celery sticks, finely diced; 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 50 g plain flour; 600 ml whole milk; 300 ml vegetable or chicken stock; 1 tsp Dijon mustard; 1 tsp fine sea salt; ¾ tsp coarsely ground black pepper; ¼ tsp grated nutmeg; 2 x 145 g tins tuna in oil, drained and flaked; 200 g frozen peas; 120 g mature Cheddar, grated; 3 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley; 80 g panko breadcrumbs; 30 g unsalted butter, melted; 40 g Parmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Rebuilt without the tin of soup: a proper mushroom béchamel, egg noodles cooked short, and a buttered crumb top with Parmigiano in it. Comfort food that tastes of ingredients.

1 hr 10 min to 1 hr 20 min total 1 hr 10 min to 1 hr 20 min start to finish Serves 6 servings Easy

The Method for Tuna Noodle Casserole

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Heat the oven to 190°C / 375°F and butter a 23 x 33 cm dish.
Cook the noodles in salted water for 3 minutes less than the packet time. Drain and set aside.
Melt the butter in a large pan over medium-high, add the mushrooms in one layer and leave 4 minutes before stirring, then cook 5 minutes more until browned and dry.
Add the onion and celery and cook 6 minutes until softened, then the garlic for 1 minute.
Stir in the flour and cook 2 minutes, then add the milk and stock a third at a time, whisking each addition smooth.
Simmer 5 minutes until it thickly coats a spoon, then stir in the mustard, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Take off the heat and fold in the tuna, peas, Cheddar, parsley and the drained noodles.
Tip into the dish and level the top.
Toss the panko with the melted butter and Parmigiano and scatter over.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until bubbling at the edges and deep golden on top. Rest 10 minutes before serving.

Related guide: Pan and tin size.

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What Can Go Wrong

Brown the mushrooms properly. Grey mushrooms give you a grey casserole.
Fold the tuna in off the heat and gently. Stirred into a simmering sauce it disintegrates.
Panko, not dried breadcrumbs. It stays crisp where fine crumbs turn to sand.

If You're Missing Something

Panko gives the crunchiest crust here, but ordinary dried breadcrumbs will still fry crisp if that's what's in the cupboard.
An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

Good to Know About Tuna Noodle Casserole

The tinned-soup version is thin and salty because condensed soup is mostly water, salt and modified starch. A béchamel made with flour, butter, milk and stock is thicker, so it clings to the noodles instead of running to the bottom, and it carries whatever flavour you build into it — here, mushrooms browned hard first. Undercooking the noodles by three minutes matters for the same reason it does in any pasta bake: they will absorb sauce in the oven and finish there.

What to Serve It With

A sharp green salad · Quick pickles · A cold cider

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Artisan Sourdough Bread, New York Bagels, Creamy Coleslaw.

Leftovers

Refrigerated for 3 days. Reheat covered at 180°C / 356°F for 25 minutes. Freezes unbaked for 2 months.