1.1.2026 Article Post with Mixed Media
The Casserole Never Left. We Just Stopped Admitting We Loved It.
By the time the casserole dish reaches the table, steaming and unmistakable, it has already done its work. It has gathered people into a room. It has implied abundance, patience, and care. It has promised leftovers.
For decades, casseroles have suffered from an image problem. They are associated with church basements and Midwestern potlucks, with cream-of-something soups and cans opened without apology. They are remembered as relics of the 1950s, when convenience foods promised liberation and delivered sameness instead.
And yet, quietly, persistently, the casserole has endured.
In recent years, as home cooks have sought comfort in uncertain times—pandemics, inflation, climate anxiety—the casserole has reemerged not as irony but as intention. It appears in cookbooks that favor words like hearth and nourish. It shows up on social media under the guise of “one-pan dinners” and “cozy food.” It is baked in Le Creuset dishes instead of Pyrex, but the impulse is the same: make something that feeds many, forgives substitutions, and tastes better tomorrow.
“The casserole is fundamentally democratic,” said Laura Rege, a food historian who studies postwar American cooking. “It doesn’t ask for perfection. It asks for participation.”
Unlike the plated minimalism that dominated restaurant culture for much of the early 2000s, casseroles resist individualism. They are not meant to be customized per person or plated with tweezers. They are cut, spooned, and shared. Their layers blur together, their edges soften. Even their flaws—soggy bottoms, overly browned tops—are part of the appeal.
In Minnesota, where hotdish remains a point of regional pride, casseroles are still a living language. Tater tot hotdish, with its golden crust of frozen potatoes, is served at funerals and family reunions alike. The dish is not precious, but it is precise. Change too much and someone will notice.
Elsewhere, the casserole has evolved. In Brooklyn, a lentil-and-sweet-potato bake leans heavily on cumin and harissa. In Los Angeles, enchilada casseroles blur the line between homage and reinvention. Online, cooks debate whether mac and cheese qualifies as a casserole or stands apart as its own category of devotion.
Some words just so there is something underneath the carousel.