Best Spices for Green Bean Casserole

Green bean casserole is lightly seasoned by design, and most of its flavor comes from the can. Campbell’s says the recipe was born in its test kitchen in 1955,¹ and the Associated Press credits Dorcas Reilly, then a Campbell kitchen supervisor, with combining the ingredients.² The original seasoning is short: black pepper and a teaspoon of soy sauce, on top of a condensed soup that already brings salt, garlic and MSG.¹³ This page covers what each of those does and which spices are worth adding if you want more than the classic.

At a glance

Seasoning	Where it comes from	Job in the dish
Salt	Mostly the soup: 860 mg sodium per 1/2-cup serving³	Seasoning; Campbell’s says to season to taste¹
Monosodium glutamate (MSG)	The soup’s ingredient list³	Savory depth
Dried garlic	The soup’s ingredient list³	Background savoriness
Soy sauce	Added, 1 teaspoon¹	Salt and savory depth
Black pepper	Added, to taste¹	Mild heat
Fried onions	Topping, 1 1/3 cups¹	Crunch and the dish’s main onion flavor
Nutmeg	Optional addition	Warm note that suits creamy dishes
Garlic, onion powder, thyme	Optional additions	More savory and herbal depth

The classic recipe

Campbell’s current version serves 6 and uses:¹

1 can (10.5 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup 2% milk
1 teaspoon soy sauce
4 cups cooked cut green beans
1 1/3 cups French fried onions, half mixed in and half on top
Salt and pepper to season

The AP’s account of the original lists the same core: green beans, cream of mushroom soup and fried onions on top.² Campbell says it is the most popular recipe ever to come out of its corporate kitchen, and the original recipe card was donated to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002.²

The seasonings and what each one does

The soup: salt, garlic and MSG

The condensed soup is the main seasoning. Its label lists, among other ingredients, salt, monosodium glutamate, yeast extract, dried garlic and natural flavoring, with 860 mg of sodium per half-cup serving.³ Campbell’s recipe says to season the mixture with salt and pepper, and adds that cooks using the unsalted version of the soup can add salt to taste.¹ Taste before salting, since the regular soup already carries plenty.

MSG is the sodium salt of glutamic acid, a common amino acid.⁴ The FDA regards added MSG as generally recognized as safe and requires it to be named on ingredient lists as “monosodium glutamate.”⁴ FDA’s summary of an independent scientific review says some sensitive people may get short-term, generally mild symptoms after 3 grams or more of MSG eaten without food.⁴ See MSG vs. salt and cooking with MSG.

Soy sauce

The one added seasoning in Campbell’s recipe besides salt and pepper is a teaspoon of soy sauce.¹

Black pepper

Black pepper is the one spice in Campbell’s recipe.¹ Its bite comes principally from piperine.⁵ Freshly ground pepper is a common preference; Campbell’s simply says to season with salt and pepper.¹ See cracked vs. ground black pepper.

Onion: fried, on top

The classic dish gets its onion flavor from the canned French fried onions, mixed into the beans and scattered over the top.¹ Fresh onion is not in Campbell’s recipe; sautéed yellow onion or a little onion powder in the sauce is a common home variation. Onion (Allium cepa) belongs to the Amaryllidaceae family.⁶

Garlic

The soup already contains dried garlic.³ If you add fresh garlic, Britannica places it in the same family as onion, Amaryllidaceae,⁷ and America’s Test Kitchen warns that garlic added too early can quickly burn and turn acrid and bitter, so add it after other aromatics have softened.⁸ See garlic powder vs. garlic.

Nutmeg: the optional warm note

Nutmeg is not in the classic recipe. McCormick suggests it for savory dishes such as scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots and creamed spinach.⁹ Britannica describes its taste as warm and slightly sweet.¹⁰ A small grating into the sauce is enough; see cooking with nutmeg and too much nutmeg.

Herbs

Thyme is our suggestion for a herbal note; no recipe here uses it. If you add a dried herb, the University of Delaware extension guide’s general rule applies: dried herbs are stronger than fresh, and 3/4 to 1 teaspoon dried equals 2 to 3 teaspoons fresh.¹¹

Making it from scratch

If you replace the canned soup with a homemade mushroom sauce, you remove the soup’s seasoning along with it, so the salt, garlic and savory depth the label supplies³ have to come from somewhere else: salt, sautéed garlic and onion, soy sauce, and perhaps a pinch of nutmeg. See mushroom spices and good seasonings for green beans.

“Classic Green Bean Casserole”, Campbell’s. campbells.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²
“Dorcas Reilly, who created the green bean casserole, dies at 92”, Associated Press via The Boston Globe, 2018. bostonglobe.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup, label text via Hannaford product listing. hannaford.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
“Questions and Answers on Monosodium glutamate (MSG)”, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. fda.gov · Regulator ↩ ↩² ↩³
“Black pepper”, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩
“Allium cepa L.”, Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. powo.science.kew.org · Reference work ↩
“Garlic”, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩
Liz Bomze, “Why You Should Wait to Add Garlic”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2023. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩
“McCormick Ground Nutmeg”, McCormick. mccormick.com · Merchant ↩
“Nutmeg”, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩
“Using Herbs and Spices”, University of Delaware Cooperative Extension, revised 2025. udel.edu · Reference work ↩

Green Bean Casserole Spices: What the 1955 Recipe Uses, and What to Add