14 casserole recipes guaranteed to make your life easier

Lancaster County in Pennsylvania—colloquially known as Amish Country—features several all-you-can-eat smorgasbords. This Zucchini Casserole recipe is a recreation of one of the best dishes in the region, found at the Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant. It’s cheesy and buttery and unbelievably rich, yet it’s somehow still vegetables beneath it all. Get the recipe for Zucchini Casserole here.

This Ritz-and-Gravy Squash Casserole is packed with warm gravy and crunchy crackers, making it the perfect savory counterpart to sweeter side dishes. It’s the culinary equivalent of lying on a sofa under a blanket, and if you’re looking for a recipe that can best be described as “hygge,” this is it. Get the recipe for Ritz-and-Gravy Squash Casserole here.

Wait, come back! Don’t click away from Tuna Casserole! We know it’s an almost universally maligned dish, but it has so much going for it. It’s a pantry meal whose ingredients are easy to keep on hand for weeknight meals. It’s a two-pot concoction that doesn’t require a lot of cleanup. And what you pull out of the oven is an unfussy, piping-hot Pyrex full of cold-weather comfort. We know you’ve heard a lot of bad stuff about Tuna Casserole, but please, try this recipe before making up your mind about a midcentury classic—we added extra butter for you. Get the recipe for Tuna Casserole here.

Ultra-rich, ultra-creamy, and ultra-cheesy, this nontraditional Cheesy Hash Elegante is the perfect textural mash-up. The cheese offers a smooth, tangy binder, while sautéed and baked corn flake crumbles give the dish a brown buttery finish. We could think of only one word for this casserole: Midwestlicious. Get the recipe for Cheesy Hash Elegante here.

Drag holiday guests out of bed with this special-occasion French Toast Casserole. A caramel sauce and cinnamon- and vanilla-laced custard soak into soft slices of French bread overnight, making for an easy morning bake. The whole thing takes about 10 minutes to prep, and the dish packs a major wow factor—holiday or no holiday. Get the recipe for Wake and Bake French Toast Casserole here.

This Italian Rice Ball Casserole, inspired by the legendary fried rice balls at Joe’s of Avenue U in Gravesend, Brooklyn, has a whole lot of heart and a whole lot of rice. It’s stuffed with carbs and Pecorino and topped with fresh ricotta, delivering all of the flavor of the borough with way less prep time than you might expect. Mangia bene! Get the recipe for Italian Rice Ball Casserole here.

Think corn pudding plus classic elotes toppings. This Elotes Casserole recipe uses canned corn to make it both easy and quick to pull together while being totally unhampered by the short sweet corn season. A perfect side dish for holiday dinners and chill weeknights alike, it can be served warm or at room temperature. Plus, you can make the base up to three days ahead, reheat, and garnish right before serving. Get the recipe for Elotes Casserole here.

Green Bean Casserole is a highly divisive classic. Still, in most states it’s pretty much a legal requirement when it comes to setting your Thanksgiving table, and it’s the pride and joy of culinary grannies everywhere. In this version—which owes all due credit to both Grandma Phyllis and the instructions on a can of French’s crispy fried onions—you’ll note that the recipe calls for a can of water chestnuts, which add the perfect amount of crunch to the overall dish. Trust us, it works. Get the recipe for Green Bean Casserole here.

Picture this: a deconstructed burrito, a refried-beans-and-Bisquick crust, and tons of ground beef, salsa, and cheese. Bake it all up in a cast-iron skillet for the easiest weeknight casserole you’ll ever eat. Burrito Bisquick Bake takes all of 10 minutes to pull together and costs less than $10 total. Get the recipe for Burrito Bisquick Bake here.

Start with the gourd of your choosing (opt for canned pumpkin if you’re short on time), then throw it in with heaps of vanilla, pecans, brown sugar, and butter. Put it all together and you’ve got Sweet Squash-Pecan Casserole, a deceptively simple, undeniably show-stopping Thanksgiving side that’ll tempt even the most gourd-averse dinner guests. It even works as a dessert. Get the recipe for Sweet Squash-Pecan Casserole here.

Allow us to present the perfect Sunday morning brunch casserole using two American classics: SPAM and Tater Tots. It’s easy, filling, satisfying, and positively oozing with cheese. Cook at 350 degrees for an hour, and you’ve got a crowd-pleasing casserole to feed your screaming holiday masses. Or just yourself. Get the recipe for SPAM Tater Tot Casserole here.

Meet your new favorite brunch dish. By placing pre-cooked burgers and classic burger toppings between two layers of cheese grits, you get the best of all worlds in this Cheeseburger Grits Casserole. All the fun and flavor of a cheeseburger in an easy make-ahead entree. The grits mean you can serve it for any meal of the day, and no one has to know how low-effort it was. Get the recipe for Cheeseburger Grits Casserole here.

The Flying Jacob is creamy and inviting, with the sweetness of the bananas pairing unexpectedly well with Italian-spiced chicken and smoky bacon fat. Yes, you read that right: bananas and chicken, together at last. It comes out of the oven an incandescent orange, not unlike a skillet of Kraft Mac & Cheese—and likewise, a bellyful could sustain you through a long winter. The flavors might sound like an unusual combination, but go ahead and follow our lead on this one. Get the recipe for Flying Jacob here.

Like any good Minnesotan, Senator Amy Klobuchar has several recipes for hotdish—but this is the one that won the Minnesota Congressional Hotdish Competition back in 2011. The tater tots give it crunch and the pepperjack cheese gives it a kick. There’s no pretense that this is anything other than a giant carb bomb, and that is totally okay. Get the recipe for Amy Klobuchar’s Taconite Tater Tot Hotdish here.