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This Slow Cooker Green Bean Casserole is a great mix of convenience and from-scratch cooking and won’t take up any oven space. Start with frozen beans but make your own creamy mushroom sauce, then top the whole thing with plenty of crunchy fried onions.
I didn’t grow up eating Green Bean Casserole at Thanksgiving, but based on the recipe I see in Campbell’s magazine ads, I’m not sorry about it. Canned green beans with canned mushroom soup? I’m not a food snob, but that just doesn’t sound like my kind of thing.
So when I made Green Bean Casserole the first time, I kicked the cans. I’ve made Green Bean Casserole in the oven with fresh beans too, but my go-to is this version, in a slow cooker, with frozen green beans.
The Cream of Mushroom sauce takes about 10 minutes or so, and it’s worth every second. The flavor here is so much better than canned: Rich, savory mushrooms, heavy cream, and fresh garlic.
Toss the green beans in the sauce, then transfer the whole thing to your slow cooker. Just before serving, top the Green Bean Casserole with crispy French fried onions. Yes, those classic crunchy ones from a can. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.
Table of Contents
Recipe ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
Ingredient notes
- Mushrooms: Use fresh mushrooms to make a quick from-scratch cream of mushroom sauce.
- Frozen green beans: To substitute fresh beans, trim and chop 2 pounds of green beans. Blanch the beans in 4 quarts of boiling salted water for about 5 minutes, then drain well and plunge immediately in to an ice bath to stop the cooking.
- Fried onions: To substitute bread crumbs for the canned fried onions, pulse 4 slices hearty white bread (torn into pieces) in a food processor or blender. You will have about 3 cups of crumbs. Stir in 3 tablespoons melted butter or olive oil and fry in a large skillet over medium-high heat until browned. Sprinkle over the casserole just before serving.
Step-by-step instructions
- In a large skillet or Dutch oven, melt butter over medium-high heat until foaming subsides. Add mushrooms, garlic, ¾ teaspoon salt, and ⅛ teaspoon pepper. Cook until the mushrooms have released most of their liquid, about 5 to 7 minutes.
- Stir in flour and cook for one minute. Whisk in broth, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil, whisking constantly.
- Reduce heat to medium. Whisk in cream and simmer until the sauce has thickened, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Meanwhile, cook the beans in the microwave according to the package instructions (or microwave on HIGH power for 4 to 5 minutes; let stand 1 minute before removing from the microwave). Drain well (I like to use a salad spinner to spin them dry). Add the green beans to the pot with the mushroom sauce and toss until evenly coated. Transfer the beans and sauce to a crock pot.
- Cook on HIGH for 2 hours or LOW for 4 hours or until a thermometer inserted in to the middle of the casserole reaches 165 degrees. Top with canned fried onions immediately before serving.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe makes about 10 cups of casserole, enough for 10 1-cup sized, side dish (you’ll be able to feed more than 10 people depending on how many sides you have at Thanksgiving).
- Storage: Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- Make ahead: You can make the mushroom sauce up to 2 days before. Cool and refrigerate. Since the sauce will be going in cold, increase the crockpot time to 3 hours on HIGH or 5 hours on LOW.
- Blanch fresh green beans ahead: If using fresh beans instead of frozen, they may be blanched the night before, cooled, and stirred in the cooled mushroom sauce, and refrigerated overnight. Increase the crockpot time to 3 to 4 hours on HIGH or 5 to 6 hours on LOW .
- Oven instructions: Follow the recipe as written through Step 5, but then instead of transferring the green bean mixture to a slow cooker, spread it in the bottom of a 3-quart or a 9×13 baking dish. Sprinkle with fried onions and bake at 425 degrees until the top is golden brown and the sauce is bubbling around the edges, about 15 minutes.
- Small batch: Green bean casserole for two is made in the oven with 8 ounces frozen green beans.
- Vegan Green Bean Casserole: Plant-based Green Bean Casserole made with cashew cream in a slow cooker.
- Small army: To triple the recipe for 30 to 40 people, increase the ingredients as follows: ½ cup (1 stick) butter, 3 pounds white button mushrooms, 1 bulb garlic (9 to 10 cloves) 3 teaspoons salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper, 1 cup flour, 4 ½ cups chicken broth, 4 ½ cups heavy cream, 6 (12-ounce) packages of frozen cut green beans, and 3 cups canned fried onions (or more if desired).
- Best Thanksgiving Slow Cooker Recipes: Discover the best slow cooker recipes for your Thanksgiving feast including turkey and all the classic sides. Free up oven and stove top space when you need it most by cooking one (or more!) Thanksgiving recipes in a crockpot.
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Slow Cooker Green Bean Casserole
This Slow Cooker Green Bean Casserole is a great mix of convenience and from-scratch cooking and won't take up any oven space.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 pound white button mushrooms trimmed and sliced (see note 1)
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 2 (12 ounce) packages frozen cut green beans (see note 2)
- 3 cups canned fried onions (see note 3)
Instructions
- In a large skillet or Dutch oven, melt butter over medium-high heat until foaming subsides. Add mushrooms, garlic, ¾ teaspoon salt, and ⅛ teaspoon pepper. Cook until the mushrooms have released most of their liquid, about 5 to 7 minutes.
- Stir in flour and cook for one minute. Whisk in broth, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil, whisking constantly.
- Reduce heat to medium. Whisk in cream and simmer until the sauce has thickened, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Meanwhile, cook the beans in the microwave according to the package instructions (or microwave on HIGH power for 4 to 5 minutes; let stand 1 minute before removing from the microwave). Drain well (I like to use a salad spinner to spin them dry).
- Add the green beans to the pot with the mushroom sauce and toss until evenly coated. Transfer the beans and sauce to a crock pot.
- Cook on HIGH for 2 hours or LOW for 4 hours or until a thermometer inserted in to the middle of the casserole reaches 165 degrees. Top with canned fried onions immediately before serving.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Mushrooms: Use fresh mushrooms to make a quick from-scratch cream of mushroom sauce.
- Frozen green beans: To substitute fresh beans, trim and chop 2 pounds of green beans. Blanch the beans in 4 quarts of boiling salted water for about 5 minutes, then drain well and plunge immediately in to an ice bath to stop the cooking.
- Fried onions: To substitute bread crumbs for the canned fried onions, pulse 4 slices hearty white bread (torn into pieces) in a food processor or blender. You will have about 3 cups of crumbs. Stir in 3 tablespoons melted butter or olive oil and fry in a large skillet over medium-high heat until browned. Sprinkle over the casserole just before serving.
- Yield: This recipe makes about 10 cups of casserole, enough for 10 1-cup sized, side dish (you’ll be able to feed more than 10 people depending on how many sides you have at Thanksgiving).
- Storage: Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- Make ahead: You can make the mushroom sauce up to 2 days before. Cool and refrigerate. Since the sauce will be going in cold, increase the crockpot time to 3 hours on HIGH or 5 hours on LOW.
Nutrition
Serving: 1cupCalories: 280kcalCarbohydrates: 12gProtein: 3gFat: 25gSaturated Fat: 14gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 58mgSodium: 315mgPotassium: 207mgFiber: 1gSugar: 1gVitamin A: 632IUVitamin C: 4mgCalcium: 30mgIron: 1mg
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I would like to cut back on the milk added, as I cannot tolerate it very well. Could I add whole milk and broth? I think I would need to add more flour to make sure it thickens enough, do you think?
Hi Lee, I do think you could probably substitute whole milk and use more flour (how much, I’d have to test to see). However, my gut reaction is to suggest a milk substitute such as coconut cream. The thick one. I can test it that way in the next day or so. Do you have a preference? Just let me know!
Hi Meggan,
Thanks for the response. I would be afraid the coconut would taste weird, but I did think about using maybe plain Greek yogurt instead. What do you think?
Hi Lee, I once had a casserole with the coconut cream and you never would have known it was coconut cream. So that’s the only reason I suggested it… but I completely understand your fears. I am not sure how Greek Yogurt would work. It might work perfectly, but I just have no idea! I haven’t used it as a thickener before. If you think you can tolerate the whole milk, that is within the realm of my experience. I would just go with equal parts fat (butter) and flour, you can always add more milk if it’s too thick. And if it’s too thin, you mash up more butter and flour in your hand (cold) and toss it in to the hot sauce and whisk it.
Well thank you for figuring out a way to skip the canned soup on this recipe. We make this every year but I never really like using the canned soup either . . . but it’s Thanksgiving so we keep making it anyway . . . so thanks for the breakthrough! I made your Chipotle copycat guacamole at lunch today, and I made the salsa the other night . . . I LOVE that salsa!!!
Hey Julie! Thanks so much for your comment. I personally think Green Bean Casserole is MUCH better without the canned cream of soup. The real thing isn’t too hard to make, either! But I know what you mean, it’s hard to break tradition. 🙂 Also, thanks for trying the Chipotle Guacamole! And the salsa! I appreciate you. 🙂 Take care!
How many people/servings does your recipe make? I like the idea of making your own mushroom sauce. I will be hosting approximately 30 people for Thanksgiving, so I want to have enough. THANKS.
Hi Liz! This recipe makes 8 to 10 servings. I feel like you could triple the recipe and be fine. I will test it out this weekend (tripling the recipe) and leave you another comment (and update the post) with any changes. I’ve been wanting to make this again anyway! Thanks for your question!
Hey Liz! I tripled the recipe yesterday and it worked just great. I updated the blog post with the info (the increased ingredient amounts and instructions are in the recipe notes). If it’s easier, I can shoot you an email with the updated info. Just let me know! You just need a 5.5 quart stock pot AND a 6.5 quart slow cooker to accommodate the increase in ingredients. Please let me know if you have any questions! Thanks again!
Can you use half-n-half in place of the heavy cream?
Myra, yes! Absolutely. That’s how my mom makes it. 🙂 Thank you for your question!!
Love at first read! I love green bean casserole, so this tad bit healthier version was right up my alley. Next year I plan on makin my own fried onions. Two things I did add were sunflower kernals and cream cheese. YUMMY! Thanks so much for revamping an old classic!
Maybe just “a tad” bit healthier because not really. 😀 That’s awesome if you make your own fried onions, I just can’t do it. Not that hardcore. CREAM CHEESE?! Yes, oh yes. And even sunflower kernels sound amazing!!! Great ideas, thank you for sharing!
I’ve actually never had green bean casserole before! I’m obsessed over how cheap green beans are so I’ve been trying to cook more with them haha. IF I wasn’t sold by the photos I was definitely pinning by the time you said this was the sexy julia roberts of food;)
Oh, this is one of my favorite meals. Love it! Never made it in a crock pot though. Need to make is pretty soon.
Oooh … delicious! I’ve said this before (a few times!) but I really am enjoying learning about your traditional foods. We don’t have anything like this over in the UK. We did have similar sorts of ‘bakes’ in the 80s/90s made with the Campbells thick soup, though, and I always loved it. Great to have a ‘real’ recipe for it and, for me, the piece de resistance is definitely those crispy onions. Mmm!
We do not have cans of fried onions here in Australia, so what could I use instead??
Hi Pauline, making any kind of onion rings/onion strings from scratch would be the closest substitute, but that’s likely WAY too much work and kind of defeats the purpose of this recipe. Using crunchy, buttery bread crumbs is equally delicious.
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/175 degrees C.
2. Pulse 4 slices white sandwich bread (torn into quarters), 2 Tablespoons softened unsalted butter, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a food processor until it resembles coarse crumbs (about 10 pulses).
3. Spread the bread crumbs in an even layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until lightly golden brown, about 10 to 15 minutes.
4. Add them to the slow cooker right at the end, in place of the canned fried onions.
5. You can make them ahead of time and store them in the refrigerator, but you may want to return them to the oven to warm up for a few minutes before you add them to the crock pot. Straight out of the fridge, obviously, they’d be cold.
Thanks so much for your question! I will definitely update the recipe to include the bread crumbs option. If you have anymore questions, just let me know!
I don’t have a microwave. Would I just follow the stovetop cooking instructions on the package for the frozen beans? Or I am wondering if I could just defrost them overnight in the refrigerator, drain any extra water and add to the sauce. Won’t the crockpot cook them sufficiently without the extra step?
Hi Mary, thanks for your question! I think you could do either. The main point of cooking them/thawing them ahead of time is to get rid of the excess water. I tried putting them in the crockpot straight from the freezer, and they watered down the sauce in the process. So, either cooking them on the stove top or thawing them overnight (and draining well in either case) should do the trick. Thanks for your question and I’ll add some notes about this in the post so it’s clear for everyone else!