An ultra-creamy version of our beloved green bean casserole, made with cut green beans, bacon, sauteed onion and garlic, shredded cheese, cream cheese and crispy French-fried onions, with the classic cream soup base.

Green Bean Supreme Casserole

Do you love a green bean casserole? It has a following for sure, but it has just as many haters I guess, though I just don't understand.

I guess it's the fact that it has been a part of my holiday meals all of my life and frankly, a tradition, so I've always loved it. Though no holiday goes by without this dish - in some form - appearing on the dinner table, I don't reserve it only for holidays either.

You do realize that there are many different ways to make it, right? I've actually got a few variations right here on Deep South Dish in fact!

Unbundled Green Beans with Brown Sugar Sauce

Fresh green beans, blanched, tossed with bacon and onion, then baked in a brown sugar sauce.

Unbundled Green Beans

No doubt at some point you have seen or made bacon wrapped green bean or asparagus bundles. Marinated with either a brown sugar sauce or a seasoned olive oil vinaigrette, then wrapped in bacon and broiled, baked or grilled, they are indeed delicious, but pretty time intensive to make. This recipe gives you the flavor, in a casserole form, without so much work.

Green Bean Étouffée - Smothered Green Beans

Green beans with onions and tasso or andouille, smothered in a light roux gravy.

Green Bean Étouffée

Give us the opportunity to smother something in gravy in the south, and we'll sure do it - seafood certainly, but yes, even green beans and peas y'all! Hey, what can I say? Gravy is good stuff.

If you've ever had the opportunity to eat the green bean side dish from Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen - my favorite place for fried chicken when I have a craving for it and don't want to deal with the mess - then you're already familiar with smothered green beans. A simple side dish made from a light roux, sauteed onion, chopped tasso and green beans simmered in the gravy. It's absolutely delicious!

Unlike the slower, long stewed version of southern green bean preparation, this method is a quick fix version, using onion and bacon for seasoning, and fitting for fresh, frozen and even canned green beans. Add in some chunks of new or small red potatoes for a change.

Quick Fix Southern Style Green Beans

Southern style green beans, whether made alone with sauteed onion and bacon, or with the addition of potatoes, are a well loved side dish in this part of the country.

When fresh green beans are at peak in my garden, or in season and available in abundance at the grocery store, those are what I prefer to cook. When I run out of those, or when it's off season, frozen or canned green beans are a perfectly acceptable substitute.

Green bean casserole, made with cream soup and topped with crunchy French's onions, is a holiday classic.

Classic Green Bean Casserole

I don't know what it is about Green Bean Casserole, but I am the first one to say I love it, and I expect it at holiday meals.

Gooey, creamy southern béchamel (that's Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup for those of y'all with a more sophisticated palate) mixed in with one of our favorite southern veggies - green beans - and accented by crunchy French-fried onions.