Serve up this delicious Gluten Free Green Bean Casserole made with fresh green beans for your next holiday gathering. Our recipe is dairy free and still creamy and delicious, with added bacon and dairy free parmesan for even more flavor! Your friends, family, and guests won’t even know it’s allergy friendly.
If you’re looking for great last-minute allergy friendly recipe for Thanksgiving, we have a delicious gluten free green bean casserole for you! We took traditional green bean casserole and made it gluten free, dairy free, and made it with fresh green beans (rather than canned ones).
I also dressed it up a bit with bacon and dairy free parmesan as well for additional flavor, it’s pretty amazing! Your guests won’t know that this is allergy friendly.
Since our green bean casserole is made with fresh green beans rather than canned ones, this recipe does take longer to cook, so you’ll want to plan ahead for this recipe to make sure you have plenty of time to cook this for holiday meals.
This green bean casserole isn’t just for the holidays, this also makes a great side dish for any sit down meal where you have some extra time to cook.
Our green bean casserole is:
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Peanut free
- Tree nut free (except for coconut)
- Soy free
- Made with fresh green beans
- Can be made vegan (omit bacon or use a bacon substitute)
How to make gluten free green bean casserole with fresh green beans
This dairy free green bean casserole recipe has several steps in it and it takes a bit longer to cook the fresh green beans, but the result is worth it!
Rather than using a canned mushroom soup concentrate, we created our own dairy free thick mushroom soup as the sauce for this recipe.
Here are the steps to make this recipe (the full recipe card is at the bottom of the post):
- Cook your bacon first: preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place the bacon on the pan and cook in the oven until done to your liking. For thinner bacon, about 12-13 minutes, for thick sliced bacon, 14-16 minutes.
- While the bacon is cooking, prepare the sauce and green beans. Wash, trim, and cut the green beans into 1 to 2 inch pieces and set aside.
- In a 2 quart saucepan, heat 1 Tablespoon dairy free butter. Chop the mushrooms and measure 1 cup of chopped mushrooms into the pan with the melted butter and saute over medium to medium-low heat until the mushrooms soften, about 5 minutes.
- Add 3/4 cup of the canned coconut milk to the pan with the mushrooms and stir, keeping the heat on medium-low.
- Add the remaining 1/4 cup canned coconut milk to a small bowl and whisk in the cornstarch, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, black pepper, and the Cajun spice to make a cornstarch slurry.
- Whisk the milk/cornstarch mixture into the mushroom mixture in the pan and cook and stir frequently until it thickens. Remove from the heat and set aside.
- Once the bacon is done cooking, use paper towels to soak up any excess oil on the bacon and chop the bacon. You should have about 3/4 to 1 cup of bacon pieces. Leave the oven on to 400 degrees F while you put everything together.
- Put everything together: add the green beans, bacon pieces, and sliced green onions to the pan with the mushroom sauce and stir to combine.
- Scoop into an 8×8 inch baking pan.
- Cover the pan snugly with foil, and bake at 400 F for 40 minutes.
- Once the casserole has cooked 40 minutes, uncover and sprinkle with the dairy free parmesan and 1/2 to 3/4 cup gluten free fried onions on top of the casserole.
- Bake again for 5 more minutes, uncovered. If you don’t want your french fried onions browned any more, you can cook the casserole for 45 minutes covered, then sprinkle on the parmesan and onions while hot and don’t return it to the oven again.
- Cool the casserole for 5-10 minutes before serving.
How to make our dairy free green bean casserole with canned green beans
If you want to make this recipe faster and cut prep time, you can use canned green beans instead of fresh green beans. Follow the same recipe but with these changes outlined below:
- When making the mushroom soup/sauce, use the same recipe but omit the 1/4 teaspoon salt, unless you are using unsalted canned green beans.
- Bake at 375 degrees F uncovered for 25 minutes, then top with the bread crumbs, panko, or fried onions and dairy free parmesan.
- Return to the oven and bake an additional 5 minutes.
My husband prefers this recipe made with canned green beans since they are softer, but I prefer our green bean casserole made with fresh green beans since they still have a nice tender crisp texture.
Gluten free french fried onions
We made our green bean casserole with the Simple Truth Organic gluten free French fried onions and they are a little bit on the saltier side (to us), so I recommend reducing the salt in the recipe if you use these ones.
Here are some other gluten free fried onions that you can buy that are also dairy free (and a couple recipes if you want to try making them yourself!):
- Simply Nature gluten free french fried onions (vegan and non-GMO)
- Live G Free gluten free french fried onions
- Sprouts Farmers Market gluten free french fried onions
- Natural Earth Products organic gluten free crispy fried onions
- Golden Farms gluten free crispy onions
- Nawabi Life crispy fried onions (have no flour coating, so also grain free and low carb)
- Healthier Steps recipe for gluten free fried onions
- Betty Crocker recipe for gluten free french fried onions (use dairy free milk)
Gluten free breadcrumbs
If you can’t find any gluten free french fried onions to top your green bean casserole, you can use gluten free bread crumbs instead if you want.
When I first posted this recipe, we didn’t have access to gluten free fried onions and I had to order them online, so I had to make this recipe initially with bread crumbs. Once I had the fried onions, I re-shot the photos.
If you use breadcrumbs, I recommend either making your own gluten free breadcrumbs, or using a gluten free panko crumb for the topping.
I tried this recipe with the regular plain 4C gluten free crumbs and didn’t like the texture of the topping with it. You can use that one if you like, but I recommend gluten free panko or homemade crumbs over that one for the best texture.
We couldn’t find any gluten free panko crumbs here in town for this recipe, so we made our own crumbs from the Little Northern Bakehouse white bread I keep in my freezer.
There are a few brands of gluten free panko you can try here (we’ve not tried these brands so you’ll need to find the one that suits your tastes best):
- Kikkoman gluten free panko
- Ian’s gluten free panko crumbs
- Jeff Nathan gluten free panko crumbs (contains egg yolk)
- Gillian’s gluten free bread crumbs (made in a dedicated gluten and nut free facility)
- Michelle Farms gluten free bread crumbs
- Kinnikinnick gluten free bread crumbs
If you’re looking for a low carb or paleo option for breadcrumbs, there are brands of panko style crumbs made with pork rinds (which would also be easy to make at home as well).
How to make gluten free bread crumbs
If you want to make your own bread crumbs for the casserole instead of onions, here are the steps for making bread crumbs:
- Toast 1-2 pieces of gluten free bread in a toaster with lower heat a few times until it is dry but not dark. Or you can put the slice of bread in the oven on a baking sheet at 350 for about 5-10 minutes until it is dry but not too brown. You can also use gluten free croutons here instead of a slice of bread.
- Allow the bread to cool off completely, you want this to be fully dried out as well. Cut it into pieces and place the pieces in a food processor and process into crumbs.
If you’re making this casserole with bread crumbs instead of onions, cook the casserole for 35 minutes covered. Remove the foil cover, sprinkle 2-3 Tablespoons of bread crumbs on top, then sprinkle with 2 Tablespoons dairy free parmesan, and bake again for 10 more minutes, uncovered.
Check out our other allergy friendly holiday recipes:
- Allergy friendly Sweet Potato Casserole
- Homemade Gluten Free Dairy Free Stuffing
- Gluten Free Dairy Free Thanksgiving Recipes
- Allergy friendly Holiday Pie Recipes
Gluten Free Green Bean Casserole (Dairy Free)
Ingredients
- 4 ounces nitrate-free bacon* (should make 3/4 to 1 cup chopped bacon after it's cooked)
- 1 pound fresh green beans washed, trimmed, and cut into 1-2 inch pieces
- 1 Tablespoon dairy free butter
- 1 cup chopped mushrooms (we used cremini mushrooms, a chopper makes this faster)
- 1 cup canned coconut milk
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt (leave out if your french fried onions are on the salty side)
- ¼ teaspoon all purpose Cajun/Creole spice (we use this on everything!)
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 Tablespoon corn starch
- 2 Tablespoons grated dairy free parmesan cheese (we used Violife parmesan)
- ½ to ¾ cup gluten free French fried onions (we used the Simple Truth Organic brand)
Instructions
- Cook your bacon first: preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place the bacon on the pan and cook in the oven until done to your liking. For thinner bacon, about 12-13 minutes, for thick sliced bacon, 14-16 minutes.
- While the bacon is cooking, prepare the sauce and green beans. Wash, trim, and cut the green beans into 1 to 2 inch pieces and set aside.
- In a 2 quart saucepan, heat 1 Tablespoon dairy free butter. Chop the mushrooms and measure 1 cup of chopped mushrooms into the pan with the melted butter and saute over medium to medium-low heat until the mushrooms soften, about 5 minutes.
- Add 3/4 cup of the canned coconut milk to the pan with the mushrooms and stir, keeping the heat on medium-low.
- Add the remaining 1/4 cup canned coconut milk to a small bowl and whisk in the cornstarch, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, black pepper, and the Cajun spice to make a cornstarch slurry.
- Whisk the milk/cornstarch mixture into the mushroom mixture in the pan and cook and stir frequently until it thickens. Remove from the heat and set aside.
- Once the bacon is done cooking, use paper towels to soak up any excess oil on the bacon and chop the bacon. You should have about 3/4 to 1 cup of bacon pieces. Leave the oven on to 400 degrees F while you put everything together.
- Put everything together: add the green beans, bacon pieces, and sliced green onions to the pan with the mushroom sauce and stir to combine.
- Scoop into an 8×8 inch baking pan.
- Cover the pan snugly with foil, and bake at 400 F for 40 minutes.
- Once the casserole has cooked 40 minutes, uncover and sprinkle with the dairy free parmesan and 1/2 to 3/4 cup gluten free fried onions on top of the casserole.
- Bake again for 5 more minutes, uncovered. If you don't want your french fried onions browned any more, you can cook the casserole for 45 minutes covered, then sprinkle on the parmesan and onions while hot and don't return it to the oven again.
- Cool the casserole for 5-10 minutes before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and healthy living blogger based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist