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This Vegan Green Bean Casserole is so delicious, your family won’t miss the version made with canned soup! It has a crunchy (not fried) topping, and comes together quickly, for a perfect holiday side dish.
How to Make the Best Vegan Cream Sauce
This recipe was created as an alternative to my Healthy Green Bean Casserole, which has been a fan favorite for years. In that recipe, the creamy sauce is made from a puree of mushrooms and parsnips, but it’s a little more labor-intensive than most of my other recipes.
This Vegan Green Bean Casserole is my faster solution. The sauce is made with canned white beans, which are both convenient and protein-packed. You can whip it up in just a few minutes!
To make the sauce for this vegan green bean casserole, you’ll simply combine a can of drained white beans with water, garlic, fresh rosemary, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Blend until smooth, then pour it over the cooked green beans.
Helpful Shortcuts
To save yourself some time and effort, I recommend starting with frozen green beans. That way the beans are already trimmed and cut for you! You can freeze your own green beans, or buy them at the store.
Starting with canned beans also makes this recipe a lot faster, but you can cook them from scratch if you’d like to. I’ve tested this recipe with Great Northern Beans, and with chickpeas.
Here’s how to cook chickpeas from scratch, and how to cook chickpeas in the Instant Pot, if you have dry beans on hand.
What Can You Use Instead of Fried Onions on Top?
Instead of fried onions, I like to use crunchy walnuts on top of this green bean casserole. I pulse them in the food processor with salt, so that you get a lightly salty, crunchy topping in each bite.
Alternatively, you can use any other nut or seed you have on hand, or try my Garlic-Roasted Chickpeas for a crunchy, nut-free topping.
Make-Ahead Tips
To make this Vegan Green Bean Casserole ahead of time, you can prepare the vegetables and sauce up to 3 days in advance, and store them together in the fridge. Keep the topping separate, so it doesn’t get soggy.
When you’re ready to reheat the casserole, you can add the topping and bake the casserole at 350ºF for 35 to 45 minutes, until it’s bubbly hot all the way through. Serve warm with the rest of your meal!
More Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes
Need some more holiday meal ideas? Try one of these!
- Maple Glazed Sweet Potatoes
- Vegan Meatloaf
- Baked Portobello Mushrooms
- Creamed Spinach
- Favorite Holiday Salad
- Cranberry Sauce
- Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes (the best!)
- Vegan Gravy
I’m always adding more, so be sure to check out my Thanksgiving recipes for the latest!
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 yellow onion , chopped (230 grams)
- 1 pound fresh or frozen green beans , cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 15 oz. can white beans , drained and rinsed (251 grams drained)
- 1/2 to 3/4 cups water
- 1 clove garlic (5 grams)
- 1 teaspoon salt (8 grams)
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary (about 1 teaspoon minced)
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Optional topping:
- 3/4 cup raw walnuts (or pecans, almonds, etc; 74 grams)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt (2 grams)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350ºF. Heat the olive oil in a deep sauté pan over medium heat and sauté the onion until it starts to soften, about 5 minutes.
- Add in the frozen green beans and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and stir well. Cover the pan and let the vegetables cook until heated through, about 8 to 10 minutes. The beans won't become any more tender in the oven, so make sure they are as soft as you want them to be before moving on.
- While the vegetables are cooking, combine the drained beans, 1/2 cup of water, garlic, 1 teaspoon of salt, rosemary, a couple grinds of fresh black pepper, and the lemon juice into a blender. Blend until smooth. Add 1/4 cup more water for a thinner sauce. (If using chickpeas, you might even need more water, but add it only 1/4 cup at a time.)
- To prepare the topping, use a food processor or blender to pulse the walnuts and salt together, just until coarsely ground. (It's doesn't need to be super-fine, since you want some crunch!)
- When the green beans are tender, pour the sauce over the top and stir well. Transfer the mixture to an oven-safe casserole dish, if you need to, or you can use the same pan if it's oven-safe. Adjust any seasoning to taste, then sprinkle the crushed walnut mixture over the top. Bake the casserole at 350ºF for 30 minutes, until the vegetables are piping hot and the topping is lightly golden.
- Allow the casserole to cool for 10 to 15 minutes, then serve warm. Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
If you try this green bean casserole recipe, please leave a comment below letting me know how you like it. And if you make any modifications, I’d love to hear about those, too. We can all benefit from your experience!
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Reader Feedback: What’s your favorite holiday side dish?
Disclosure: This post was originally sponsored by USA Pulses and Pulse Canada in 2016, but has since been edited.
Made according to recipe and it was delicious. I was a bit confused by where/when to add the cooked onions to the casserole dish, then found a picture that looked like they are just added with the green beans to the casserole dish. I found a website to translate 1large onion of 230 grams into cups, which worked out to 1 3/4 cups onions. That was a LOT of onion. I would probably try it next time with only 1 cup of onion. Do you a recommended amount of chopped onion in terms of cups? Thanks for posting. I’m enjoying your recipes.
This green bean casserole tasted amazing! I love how easy the sauce was to make, and how flavorful the dish turned out! I did make this dish ahead of time and heated it up the day of. Thanks for the extra prep tips!
My husband loved this and so did I! Will
Make for thanksgiving next year
In order to freeze in advance, do you bake then freeze and reheat on the day? Or freeze before baking?
Made a little half batch “tester” last night with the white beans as a base. (I have a lactose and whey intolerant son-in-law who will be here for Thanksgiving.) I added some sautéed mushrooms to the recipe, as well. The casserole was fine as a basic side dish, but as a Thanksgiving replacement to the traditional green bean casserole, it’s a no! My husband and son said to find a different recipe.
I see comments about garbanzo beans. The recipe says white beans. Please clarify.
I mention in the recipe notes that I tested this with both Cannellini beans and garbanzo beans, so either bean works, but the garbanzo beans need slightly more liquid to blend in my opinion.
I missed that in the notes! Thank you for responding.
This is the best green bean casserole I have made and is the gold standard now. Full of flavor and the walnut topping is very satisfying. Leftovers heat up wonderfully too! Thank you Detox!
Delicious and easy!