The Best Tuna Casserole

Let me tell you something. When was the last time anyone said the word 'casserole' to you and you didn't flinch? Exactly. Tuna casserole. I KNOW. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, 'Bigly, tuna casserole? My aunt made tuna casserole. It was GRAY. It had peas in it. The peas were also gray. Everything was gray. I haven't trusted casseroles since 1987.' I hear you. I HEAR you. Your trauma is valid. Casserole trauma is real, more common than people realize, and I am here to heal you. I am the casserole HEALER.

An old Italian woman cornered me once in a parking lot in New Jersey — I am not making this up, even New Jersey does this well, NOBODY talks about it — and she made me promise to never, ever, build a tuna casserole on a can of soup. She held my wrist while I promised. She had the GRIP of a longshoreman. The tuna casserole most people remember was a CRIME. A wet, beige crime. It used canned soup as its only personality. It used MUSHY noodles. It used the saddest, cheapest tuna in the cheapest oil. And then somebody — your aunt, your great-aunt, somebody's well-meaning relative — dumped crushed-up corn flakes on top, baked it for an hour and a half, and served it like a punishment. That's not casserole. That's a hostage situation in a Pyrex dish. End of discussion.

My tuna casserole? My tuna casserole has DIGNITY. It uses GOOD tuna — the kind in olive oil, the kind in a jar if you're feeling fancy, real tuna from real fish, none of that pale flaky sad-cat-food situation. It uses a from-scratch cream sauce, not a can — though I'll forgive you the can in a pinch, we're not monsters — and it gets a top of buttery Ritz cracker crumbs and bubbling cheese that goes brown and crispy in the broiler. People taste this casserole and they REPAIR. They start trusting again. Marriages have been saved. I've seen it. Tremendous casserole. The greatest casserole. Hands down.

That's it. That's the casserole that fixes casseroles. Crispy top, creamy middle, briny pops of real tuna, a little hit of dill and lemon to keep it from feeling like a heavy blanket. Serve it on a Tuesday and watch your family's faces. Real surprise. Real delight. The kind of delight you cannot fake. Most chefs will tell you to mix a can of soup with a can of tuna and call it dinner — those chefs are committing CRIMES, the food media won't say it, but somebody had to — and you, you'll be eating the greatest tuna casserole on Earth. Now go eat.