A retro noodle casserole is the kind of comfort food that stays the test of time. Nostalgic? Yeah. But still just as delicious and comforting as it was decades ago.
This one, called A Man’s Casserole, hails from the Good Housekeeping Casserole Book from 1958. And while that name might be a little, well, dated, the casserole isn’t. It’s hearty, it’s a crowd-pleaser, and it makes excellent leftovers.

What Ingredients Do You Need for A Man’s Casserole?

You’ll need:

• “Medium” noodles. (I used egg noodles.)
• Onions. 3 or 4! It’s a lot of onions.
• Butter.
• Ground chuck. 2 whole pounds.
• Dried thyme, and some salt and pepper.
• A trusty can of cream of celery soup.
• Evaporated milk.
• American cheese.
• 3 eggs.

The original recipe calls for “process cheese,” which we now refer to as American cheese. You can use cheddar interchangeably here if you’d rather! The recipe also calls for “fluid, liquefied nonfat dry milk or diluted evaporated milk.” You can use regular evaporated milk or regular refrigerated milk of whatever fat content you choose for this recipe.

How Do You Make A Man’s Casserole?

It’s pretty simple, all in all. While your noodles are boiling, you start by melting down some butter and sautéing the onions until they’re tender. This is A LOT of onions. Like a full skillet. When I was making this, I was worried it would be too much, but it all comes together really nicely in the end.

Next, you’ll remove the onions from the skillet and brown the ground beef, seasoned with that thyme and some salt and pepper. The recipe calls for you to cook the beef until it “loses color but isn’t browned,” which isn’t really something I’d advocate. Go ahead and brown that beef. It adds flavor.

Then, you assemble. Layer a third of the noodles in a baking dish, followed by half of the beef and onions, followed by half of that condensed soup mixed with the milk. You repeat those layers, top it with noodles and cheese, pour beaten eggs over the top, and then bake.

The cookbook mentions that you can do this all in the morning and cover it with foil until you’re ready to bake, so this makes for a great make-ahead dinner. Just prep ahead of time and pop it in the oven when you’re ready to bake.

And they want you to really bake this. For a full hour. In that time, the noodles on top get very crisp and the eggs bind everything together. You get a crunchy top even if there’s no breadcrumbs or crackers involved.

The end result is a very hearty casserole. I was worried it would be too onion heavy, but with the two pounds of beef it balances out really well. I liked that it wasn’t as noodle-heavy as some other vintage casseroles.

That means it’s maybe not as economical, but it certainly is filling and a great thing to make when you have a lot of hungry people to feed. (Not just men!)