Most of my favorite corners of Instagram aren’t aspirational at all. After a day of reviewing cookbooks and recipes from competent, contemporary cooks, I find myself scrolling toward something stranger: accounts that operate like a digital card catalog of retro culinary horror and delight.
On accounts like @70sdinnerparty, in washed-out Kodachrome, you’ll find “Greek Soup (Easy Version),” its broth suspiciously thickened with Lemon Jell-O pudding mix. You’ll find “vegetable casserole,” a swamp of canned onions, frozen peas and carrots, cream of celery soup and a splash of milk. You’ll find “planetary frankfurters” — hot dogs launched into orbit by a relish-cheese spread and something called liquid hot pepper seasoning.
Account after account, one common punchline makes its way into the comments: “Just like grandma used to make.” The tone shifts depending on punctuation — sometimes affectionate (!), sometimes skeptical (?), sometimes weary (…). But lately I’ve been thinking about what’s tucked inside that joke: grandmothers’ peculiar dual role in the culinary imagination. They are both the most revered and the most maligned cooks in our culture.
On one hand, we canonize “grandma food”: the Staten Island restaurant Enoteca Maria (and its Netflix-adjacent fame) runs on its staff of rotating nonnas; the “coastal grandmother” aesthetic had us longing for Nora Ephron’s film kitchens; even the Sims 4 has a “Grannies Old Cookbook” mod to up your player’s culinary skills. On the other hand, we dismiss it with a single qualifier: Not your grandma’s. Casserole, salad, cake — all upgraded, rebranded, distanced from the image of gloppy cream-of-whatever soup and shelf-stable “cheese food.”
Part of the reason those recipes look so alien to us now is that, in postwar America, food science was less kitsch than it was cutting-edge. Gelatin wasn’t a punchline; it was progress, the same way Tang was progress, the same way a shelf-stable “cheese food” promised modernity. As food historian Ken Albala told me once, science had won the war, why wouldn’t it also win in the kitchen?
While Albala was specifically talking about gelatin molds when we spoke, we’re seeing other retro dishes get a second look in the nostalgia-hungry past few years. Authors like Peter DiMario and Molly Yeh have made the case for the return of sweet salad, offering recipes that treat them less as jokes than as edible Americana, worth revisiting with better ingredients and a wink of self-awareness. I’ve extolled the virtues of the icebox cake (and find myself hunting for a thrifted fondue pot ahead of the cooler months). Look deeper at cookbooks and restaurant menus, and you’ll see other more subtle threads.
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Often dinged as an 80s relic, Chicken Marbella — in which chicken is marinated with prunes, vinegar, olives, capers and garlic for a sweet, briny dish — feels spiritually connected to more contemporary dishes like Alison Romans’ One-Pot Chicken with Caramelized Lemon and Dates. Or Ina Garten’s lush, very-very-good update.
That’s why I’d argue that rice casseroles, once the mid-century weeknight staple, are the next dish quietly ready for a second life.
Rice casserole, remixed
Now, I get it: the rice casseroles you grew up around — those beige pans of instant rice, canned vegetables, and a slurry of “cream of ___” soup — don’t exactly call you back to the kitchen. But that’s precisely why they’re worth reconsidering.
As chef Karyn Tomlinson told Food & Wine when she was named one of the magazine’s Best New Chefs in 2024, the spirit of what she sometimes calls “grandma cooking nouveau” isn’t about trend-chasing. It’s about taking humble ingredients and, with skill and time, making them taste as delicious as possible.
“It’s not showy,” she said. “But the technique is there to make simple ingredients taste as delicious as possible.”
Lean into that, and a dish that once felt dated can become deliberate, comforting, even quietly dazzling. With good ingredients, a little technique, and respect for the inherent generosity of the dish, a rice casserole moves from nostalgic relic to weeknight star.
Here’s how to get there:
Grab your cast-iron skillet — and go global
The “rice casserole” may not be trending, but its close cousin — the “rice skillet” — has exploded on Pinterest boards and food blogs for a reason. Most of those recipes are one-pan wonders: the protein and vegetables cooked in the same vessel that goes into the oven, yielding both ease and deeper flavor. If you’re feeling uninspired, it’s worth falling down that search-term rabbit hole.
And don’t feel bound by the cheesy chicken standard. Think bigger. There are cowboy casseroles piled with beans, beef, and chili heat; Low Country- and Cajun-inflected seafood bakes, lush with shrimp or crab; even skillet arancini, where risotto leftovers meet the crisp top of the casserole universe.
Choose your shortcuts wisely
Part of the appeal of casseroles in the first place was how they collapsed dinner into a symphony of shortcuts: canned soup, canned vegetables, canned meat, instant rice. A pantry-stretching miracle, yes — but sometimes also a textural tragedy.
The modern move isn’t to reject shortcuts, but to curate them. Buy the pre-chopped tub of vegetables or grab a bag of frozen (often fresher in spirit than their canned cousins, thanks to flash-freezing at peak ripeness). Reach for a rotisserie chicken or sauté fresh cubes in your skillet so you get those savory browned bits that make a cream sauce sing. And please — if you’re going to make one element from scratch, let it be the cream sauce. It’s the soul of the dish.
As for the rice: instant will absolutely work, but know it’s already been parboiled, which means it cooks in a fraction of the time. Add it late, or risk a mushy middle. Regular rice is the safer bet.
Season, season, season
The biggest mistake is thinking of a casserole as a single dish when, really, it’s an ensemble cast. Treat every player like it matters: brown and season your protein, season your vegetables, season your sauce. (Even a pinch of garlic powder, onion powder, or red pepper flakes can make a big difference.) You don’t need to be heavy-handed, but 15 well-seasoned ingredients will sing together more beautifully than one giant pot that only gets salted at the end.
Crunch! Crisp! Crinkle!
Texture is the difference between “childhood memory” and “why did I make this?” A topping brings contrast, sparkle, drama. Go classic with buttery Ritz crackers, playful with potato chips, refined with frico or panko. Even a rough scatter of croutons can give that essential crunch against the softness below. Whatever your vibe, don’t skip it.
Pair with something fresh
Freshness is your secret weapon, both on top and on the side. A handful of herbs (parsley, dill, scallions, cilantro) instantly makes a casserole taste brighter. A spoonful of green sauce, like chimichurri or pesto, can do the same. And when it comes time to serve, resist the beige-on-beige plate. Add a crisp cabbage slaw next to your Tex-Mex skillet; a sharp arugula salad with your skillet arancini. The casserole stays cozy, but the meal as a whole feels lifted, complete.
In the end, rice casserole is less about nostalgia than about inheritance. The retro versions may read like curios now, but tucked inside is a very modern impulse: making something generous out of what you have. That’s what Tomlinson calls “grandma cooking nouveau,” but it’s also just good cooking. It doesn’t need to be flashy to dazzle. Sometimes the best thing you can put on the table tonight is exactly what someone’s grandmother would have made — only now, it’s yours.
This story originally appeared in The Bite, my weekly food newsletter for Salon. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.
