Learn a no-recipe method for building a casserole entirely from food storage staples — seven building blocks (base, protein, carbohydrate, vegetables, liquid, seasoning, and topping) that combine into a different meal every time depending on what’s in the pantry. It includes a real recipe for a homemade “Cream of Whatever” soup mix to replace canned condensed soup as the casserole base, plus specific guidance on which food storage ingredients work in each category, including freeze-dried meats, dehydrated vegetables, and dried beans. The goal is to have a useful survival cooking skill — the ability to build a nutritious meal from whatever’s on the shelf, without a grocery run or a recipe card.
This article has been significantly updated, August 2026.
Casseroles are comfort food to many and a super-convenient main dish to others. I grew up on casseroles, from the classic Tuna Noodle Casserole to my Nana’s Shlumgum, so I’m a fan.
The casserole can become the best friend to any busy mom or dad. If you’ve been working on building a food storage pantry, you’ll fall in love with the idea of a No-Recipe Casserole. This is more of a concept than a recipe with specific measurements or even ingredients, and for that reason, it’s the perfect food storage companion.
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The building blocks of any casserole
Just about any casserole recipe you find is made up of 5-7 of these building blocks:
- A base
- Protein
- Carbohydrate/starch
- Vegetables
- Additional liquid
- Seasonings
- A topping of some sort
Once you have these seven components in your head, along with a few more bits of information, you’re equipped to rummage through your freezer, fridge, and pantry shelves to produce a casserole totally unique to the world! And that’s not necessarily a bad thing!
Let’s take a closer look at these 7 building blocks and the individual ingredients for each:
A base
The base of a casserole acts as a binding agent to hold all the other ingredients together. Your base could be as simple as a can of “Cream of…” soup. Cream of mushroom soup is a classic casserole ingredient, but if you don’t want to use a processed food product, try making your own “Cream of…”soup mix and using that.
Cream of “Whatever” Soup Mix
Mix together and store in an airtight container:
- 2 C powdered dry milk
- ¾ C cornstarch
- ¼ C bullion (chicken or beef, personal preference)
- 2 TB dried minced onion
- 2 tsp seasoning, such as Italian or vegetable (personal preference)
In a saucepan over medium-high heat, whisk together 1/3 cup of the mix and 1¼ cup water until desired thickness is reached. This equals roughly 1 can of creamed soup.
If a recipe calls for adding milk and a can of creamed soup, I often just double the soup mix instead. Mushrooms, potatoes, or chicken can also be added to the dish, if desired, to come closer to the old recipe with canned cream soup.
A source of protein
There are many wonderful meat-free casserole recipes, but if your casserole is going to be a hearty main dish, you should add protein, even if it’s just a can of rinsed beans. Any meat or poultry will do, and, in fact, try combining different types of meat, especially if you have leftovers. The secret to my amazing chili is that I combine ground beef, cooked bacon, chopped kielbasa — almost any meat I have, and the results are delicious. You can do the same with this No-Recipe Casserole. Chopped/shredded chicken or turkey, ground beef, tuna, venison — it’s all good. Be sure the meat is cooked and drained before adding it to your base, and figure on 12-16 ounces or so.
I’ve found that freeze-dried meats work wonderfully in casseroles. They are already cooked and diced and only need to be rehydrated. I use freeze-dried diced chicken in my family’s very favorite Sonoran Enchilada Casserole, and you would never know that chicken wasn’t freshly cooked. Home-canned chicken or beef is another option for quickly adding a source of protein.
Add carbohydrates to your casserole
The beauty of adding a carbohydrate to your casserole is that it will increase the amount of calories and the amount of food at the same time. Extra calories are an important consideration in times of emergency, since these typically require more physical activity from us, and just by adding a handful of rice or macaroni, a recipe that would have normally served 6 people, can suddenly serve 8 or 10.
Carbs that work successfully in a casserole are white and brown rice, macaroni and rotini pasta, wheat berries, quinoa, and beans. These should all be cooked first to an al dente finish (they’ll continue cooking just a bit once added to the casserole and heated), although uncooked rice can be added as long as extra water or broth is also added to the casserole.
Vegetables
It’s with veggies that your unique casserole really begins to take shape. The veggies you add can be frozen, canned (rinse first), dehydrated, or freeze-dried. Add whatever veggies your family likes, although it’s definitely permissible to sneak a little something in for extra nutrition, such as this dehydrated spinach. If anyone asks, tell them the green stuff is just “herbs”.
I typically add chopped onion, celery, and bell peppers to many of my dishes. If you’re adding these to a casserole, which only needs to bake for 20-30 minutes, these veggies will need to be sauteed in a bit of butter or a healthy oil before being added to the casserole dish. This is true of most other fresh veggies.
Diced potatoes can act as a meal stretcher, a veggie, and a carbohydrate. Keep a can of dehydrated potato dices handy just for this purpose. They are wonderfully affordable.
Additional liquid
At this point, you will need to add more liquid. Assess the amount of protein, carbohydrates, and veggies and then add extra liquid. This can be water, beef or chicken broth, a vegetable broth, or milk. Salsa is another nice addition if you want your casserole to have a Southwest flavor.
If you’re adding uncooked rice, you’ll need to add even more liquid. Typically, the ratio for uncooked rice and liquid is about 1 cup of rice to 1 1/2 cups liquid.
Seasonings
The classic casserole will be seasoned with salt, pepper, and a few dashes of garlic powder. Additional herbs, such as basil and parsley add some flavor, as will a teaspoon or two of dehydrated minced onion, if your newly invented recipe doesn’t contain onion otherwise.
A teaspoon of basil and oregano will give your casserole a bit of an Italian flavor, and a Southwest flair comes easy with a teaspoon of chili powder, a dash of cayenne, and 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of cumin.
Toppings
When I was a kid, it was the casserole topping that was always my favorite. Come to think of it, it still is! The toppings on your No-Recipe Casseroles can be crushed potato chips, Fritos, Doritos, or crackers of any kind. It could be 1/4 to 1/2 cup of bread crumbs mixed with a 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt, and sauteed in a frying pan with 2 Tablespoons of butter. Grated cheese is another excellent topping and if your casserole screams “Italian!”, by all means, add a grating of Parmesan cheese as a topping, on its own or mixed with the buttery breadcrumb mixture.
Freeze-Dried, Canned, or Fresh: Does It Matter Which You Use?
As you start assembling your no-recipe, from-scratch casserole, you might wonder if it’s okay to use canned veggies or freeze-dried chicken. Does it really matter since you’re mixing everything all together in one dish? Well, the short answer is, it depends on which building block of the casserole you’re filling.
Protein is where freeze-dried works extremely well. Freeze-dried chicken or beef rehydrates back to something close to its fresh texture, and since it’s already cooked, you don’t need to pre-cook raw meat before adding everything else. And, you don’t want to add raw meat to the casserole ingredients since they won’t have enough time to cook, causing other ingredients to be over-cooked. Canned meat works well in casseroles, too, just softer and saltier.
Vegetables go the other direction. Canned vegetables (drained first, always) hold up fine in a casserole’s short bake time since they’re already soft. Freeze-dried vegetables will need a quick rehydration first or they’ll pull the moisture out of everything else in the dish and have a very good chance of not being fully rehydrated by the end of the baking time. Fresh vegetables will need to be sautéed before going in. A raw onion or bell pepper isn’t going to cook through in 30 minutes at 350°F, but the upside is that sauteed veggies take on a deep flavor, which enhances the casserole overall.
Starches really don’t care. Rice, pasta, and beans will all cook up the same whether you cooked them from dry, canned, or a home-canned jar. Just make sure they’re fully cooked before adding to the casserole.
If I’m building a casserole completely from food storage, my order of preference is freeze-dried protein, canned vegetables (don’t have to worry about them being completely rehydrated), and dry-cooked starch — macaroni, rice, diced potatoes. If I’m using what’s actually in my kitchen, I’ll just use whatever’s fastest.
Can I Make This in a Slow Cooker or Instant Pot?
Yes, and honestly, a slow cooker might be the easiest version of this whole method. Layer your building blocks in the same order — starch and protein on the bottom, vegetables on top, soup mix/broth/water/seasonings stirred through or poured over. Cook on low for 4-6 hours or high for 2-3. Since a slow cooker holds moisture in rather than letting it bake off, you can use a bit less added liquid than the oven version calls for.
An Instant Pot works too, and it’s the fastest of the three methods by a wide margin. Use the same ingredients, add liquid according to your Instant Pot’s minimum requirement (usually at least 1 cup), and pressure cook on high for about 8-10 minutes with a natural release. The tradeoff might be texture since pressure cooking tends to soften everything more uniformly than baking does, so if you like a casserole with any real textural contrast between ingredients, you’ll probably prefer the oven or slow cooker results over the Instant Pot.
All three methods work from the same seven building blocks for a casserole. Pick whichever one matches how you’re planning to cook that day, or during a power outage.
Solar Oven Casseroles
I mentioned solar ovens are a natural fit for casseroles, and they are, but “put it in the sun” isn’t quite enough instruction to ensure your casserole is thoroughly baked by dinner time.
Most solar ovens run cooler than a conventional oven, typically topping out around 250-300°F on a good, sunny day rather than the 350°F most casserole recipes call for. That means you’ll need to factor in two adjustments. First, expect roughly double the bake time, so a 30-minute casserole becomes closer to an hour, and don’t expect much browning on top, if any. A solar oven’s gentler, more even heat won’t crisp a breadcrumb topping the way a conventional oven will.
A few things help with using solar to bake a casserole. Use a dark, thin-walled pot rather than a thick ceramic dish, since dark metal absorbs heat faster than light-colored ceramic. Position the oven to track the sun if you can check on it every hour or so to keep it in direct sunlight for a faster cooking time. And start with ingredients that are already warm or at room temperature rather than cold from a refrigerator, since it takes longer for a solar oven to bring everything up to baking temperature.
With solar, it won’t be fast, but on a sunny day with no other heat source available or you just want to keep the kitchen cool, a solar oven turning out a hot casserole is a great system.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Depends on the stage we’re talking about. A fully baked casserole keeps 3-4 days in the refrigerator, or up to 3 months in the freezer if you wrap it well. An unbaked, assembled casserole (mixed but not yet cooked) is best baked within a day if it’s in the fridge, since raw or partially-cooked starches start absorbing moisture and the whole mixture can get soggy.
The Final Word
Learning to cook without a recipe is an excellent prepping/survival skill. It challenges you to use whatever you happen to have on hand, without relying on that quick trip to the grocery store, which inevitably turns into a far more expensive outing. It’s also a great way to incorporate new “food storage” foods into your family’s diet, without them ever knowing, and a casserole is the ideal dish to cook in a solar oven.
As you begin creating your own No-Recipe Casseroles, you’ll want to do one final thing: jot down the ingredients of any casserole that is truly outstanding. If your family cleans their plates and then asks for seconds, you have a winner, and if you’re like me and your memory is a little iffy, you’ll be glad to have a written record of that new family favorite.
Try this no-recipe method with soup, too! Here’s my tutorial.
From someone who always uses a recipe — how long do you bake and at what temp? Can you use a slow cooker? Thanks!
That depends on the ingredients. In some cases, all the ingredients will be cooked (think chopped, cooked chicken and a can of corn, for example), so they just need to heat through. In other cases, there will be uncooked ingredients and that dish will need more time. I’d start at 350 degrees and 35 minutes in both cases and add extra minutes if you need them.
My mother was never a cook. She didn’t enjoy it so she never really learned. I had taken over the family cooking and baking by the time I was 16. My sister and I (now in our 50’s) were reminiscing about this on the phone and she commented “The thing I remember was your casseroles! You could make anything into a casserole!” Now, mind you, I have no memory of making all these casseroles but apparently I had taught myself this skill as a teen trying to cook for my siblings. I wish now I had written some of these down as I made them.
I also remember really good no-recipe dishes I’ve made and could never make them again! One was a chili I dreamed up from scratch, and my son loved it so much he took it to a Boy Scouts campout. I really wish I remember everything I used.
The best chili I ever made used half ground beef and half venison sausage that was mistakenly thawed when somebody (we never found out who. The sausage was somebody’s fresh sausage from their hunt over the Christmas vacation.) turned off the refrigerator a few hours before I had to cook for a “Welcome to Texas” party for about 80 college students coming from all over the country. I had 1-Alarm, 3-Alarm and No-Alarm pots going all at one time. Ever since then, I have added fresh pork sausage to my scratch-made chili. It rounds out the flavor beautifully.
Sounds great! I do something similar — I scrounge around in my refrigerator for any type of meat and toss it all together. 🙂