Season’s Choice Green Bean Casserole
In my family, it’s not Thanksgiving without a classic green bean casserole on the menu. Typically, we make this using canned green beans, canned cream of mushroom soup, a splash of milk, some salt and pepper, and a can of French fried onions.
Green bean casserole is incredibly easy to make, but this year, Aldi is selling a green bean casserole you don’t even have to assemble. It’s a package of frozen green beans with sauce and fried onions. All you do is pour it into a dish and bake.
Of course, I had to pick up a package to try at home. The bag describes this as “green beans in a creamy mushroom gravy with crispy fried onions.” It’s also described as “family size” and says it has “all ingredients included.”
Season’s Choice Green Bean Casserole is an Aldi Find. That means it’s only in stores for a short time. Each store gets just one shipment, and after that sells out, it’s gone. Aldi doesn’t offer online ordering if this is sold out at your local store.
We bought this ourselves for review. I paid $4.99 for a 22-ounce bag at my local store at the time of writing. That’s about 23 cents per ounce.
This is a product of France.
If you’re looking out for allergens, this contains wheat, milk, and soy.
Ingredients are green beans, water, pre-fried onions (onions, vegetable fat [palm], wheat flour, salt), mushrooms, semi-skimmed milk, cream, sunflower oil, modified starch, soy sauce (water, soybeans, salt, wheat flour, sugar cane alcohol), salt, mushroom extract (maltodextrin, dried mushroom), natural flavors, garlic powder, onion powder, white pepper, and nutmeg.
There are about six 1-cup servings per package. One serving has 110 calories, 6 grams of total fat (8% DV), 2 grams of saturated fat (11% DV), 370 mg of sodium (16% DV), 11 grams of total carbohydrates (4% DV), 3 grams of dietary fiber (10% DV), 2 grams of total sugars, no added sugars, and 2 grams of protein.
The package has directions for preparing this in a conventional oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. The instructions then state to open the bag and pour the contents into an “adapted ovenable dish.” This was made in France, and I think they simply mean a baking dish, but that didn’t come through quite right in the translation. “Cook … with fan” for 15 minutes. Stir the green beans and sauce pucks. Then baked for an additional 15 minutes. Let stand for 1-2 minutes before serving.
This was plenty for my family of four. We all agreed that traditional “homemade” green bean casserole is better, especially in terms of texture because the fried onions can’t get crispy in this. Opinions were mixed beyond that, with one person only taking a few bites and deciding they didn’t want any more. However, some of us thought this was decent on its own merits. We actually did eat all of it in one meal, with some of us going back for seconds, with no leftovers. You could always add part of a can of French fried onions toward the end of the baking time to give this some extra crunch.
The Verdict:
Season’s Choice Green Bean Casserole is a frozen, pour-and-bake side dish. It includes green beans, sauce, and fried onions. It tastes all right, but, not surprisingly, it doesn’t have the same crispy bits as a traditional green bean casserole you’d make yourself at home. If that’s important to you, you could add some French fried onions during the last few minutes of baking.
