How Canned Fried Onions Became A Holiday Meal Staple

Thanksgiving just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without canned fried onions to top the green bean casserole. But it's not like the pilgrims picked up a couple cans at Walmart on their way to a 17th-century harvest feast. So, when did crunchy fried onions sneak their way onto the table?

"To the best of our knowledge, Olney & Carpenter were the first large scale producers of canned french-fried onions at some point in the 1930s," Kevan Vetter, director of culinary development at McCormick Global, told Allrecipes. Several corporate acquisitions later, that product became French's Crispy Fried Onions.

But crispy onions didn't become a Thanksgiving staple because somebody canned them. They became a Thanksgiving staple because Campbell's recipe developer Dorcas Reilly invented the green bean casserole. The year was 1955. Wartime rations were out; canned foods were in. Reilly developed a casserole combining cream of mushroom soup and green beans with fried onions on top. When Campbell's started printing the recipe on cans, it really took off.

Campbell's estimates that 20 million American households will serve green bean casserole this Thanksgiving — almost certainly with crispy onions on top. That's why Americans have been known to buy $14 million of French's Crispy Fried Onions during the week of Thanksgiving, according to Fortune.

In the 1950s, Campbell's cream of mushroom soup was such a popular ingredient in Midwestern casseroles that it was known as the "Lutheran binder." Campbell's, seeking to capitalize on that success, asked Dorcas Reilly to develop a casserole with cream of mushroom soup. Reilly experimented with celery salt and ham before settling on the simple combination of soup, green beans, and fried onions still served today.

The Green Bean Casserole Reilly invented features just a handful of ingredients and equally minimal prep time. It wasn't meant to be a holiday staple. But it became one in the 1960s, according to Campbell's Test Kitchen manager Sheila Miller, "when Campbell's put the recipe on the Cream of Mushroom soup can label."

Anyone who has ever cooked for a crowd on Thanksgiving can see the appeal. Dump the contents of a couple cans into a casserole dish, add some seasoning, and top with crispy onions. It couldn't be simpler.

Most people buy crispy fried onions precisely once per year. But French's would apparently really, really like it if you used fried onions year-round. In 2010, parent company Reckitt Benckiser spent millions of dollars on an advertising campaign highlighting recipes like "Crunchy Onion Cheeseburger" and "Crunchy Onion Chicken and Noodle Dinner." Now, McCormick owns French's, but they still encourage customers to try panini and muffuletta with crispy onions as well as the classic casserole.

Big Crispy Onion is right on this one: You can use canned fried onions for much more than green bean casserole. Add them to sandwiches for extra crunch. Swap them for breadcrumbs in meatloaf, meatballs, or crab cakes. You can always use them as God — or Dorcas Reilly — intended: On top of a casserole. Tuna casserole, broccoli cheese casserole, hot sausage casserole ... There's no reason you can't add fried onions to all your favorite casseroles, all year round.