I present to you: Wild Rice and Mushroom Casserole. Um, yum. It’s rich, earthy, creamy, and the perfect vegetarian comfort food.
Is there anyone in this country that doesn’t like a good homemade casserole? If anyone says they don’t, they are lying. Just like if people say they don’t like bacon. LIES!
This is one of my favorite casseroles- it’s vegetarian, easy to make, and hearty enough to satisfy meat lovers (mushrooms tend to do that, for some reason. And eggplant. Oh no, now I am thinking about eggplant Parmesan… at 8am… yup. Typical Elizabeth. Well, I know what I am making next week!) This casserole has tons of mushrooms and nutty, slightly crunchy wild rice with sour cream and cottage cheese used as a creamy base. It’s excellent comfort food, and 100% real and unprocessed.
Did you know wild rice is not actually rice? It’s a seed from a type of grass. Who knew? While it takes a while to cook, it can be made far in advance in bulk and refrigerated for about a week or frozen for months in individual portions to use in this casserole or other recipes, like soups or veggie burgers. To freeze, just put the portion in a ziplock bag and squeeze all the air out and seal. (Or, suck the air out with a straw! It works and is so cool! Unless you accidentally inhale a grain of rice, in which case it is uncomfortable. But tasty.)
Casseroles are such an American staple, but are often made with processed canned soups. No canned soups here! I’ve also tried casseroles that used “homemade” canned soups- for instance, you can make a relatively easy cream of chicken soup by combining chicken broth, milk, flour, and spices and thickening over the stove. While this is not that difficult, it is an extra step in the cooking process that requires time and energy. I love this casserole because as long as you have rice already cooked, the only thing you have to do is sauté mushrooms and toss with the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, spread in a casserole dish, and add shredded cheese on top.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
I should note that this recipe is adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day, which is probably my favorite cookbook right now. You may be wary of it from its seemingly health-crazed title (as I would have been had I not been at the bookstore and able to see it in all its glory before purchasing) but please don’t judge this book based on it’s cover. It’s full of basic, vegetarian, all-natural recipes that are simple, delicious, and best of all, hearty. I highly recommend it.
Just be careful… you are going to want to make each and every one of her beautifully photographed dishes!
Here’s the printable recipe for Wild Rice and Mushroom Casserole :-)
Wild Rice and Mushroom Casserole
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked wild rice
- 16 oz. mushrooms roughly chopped
- 1 yellow onion finely diced
- 3 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- kosher salt and black pepper
- 2 cups cottage cheese
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup shredded gruyere or cheddar cheese
- chopped green onions or chives for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375.
- In a large skillet, heat olive oil and add mushrooms. Add a generous pinch of salt, stir once, and allow to sit until they release the water and it evaporates (about 5 minutes). Stir again and sauté until browned (about another 5 minutes).
- Add onion to mushrooms; sauté until transparent (about 3 minutes).
- Add garlic to mushrooms; sauté for one more minute.
- Turn off heat, add rice to mushrooms and stir.
- Meanwhile, mix together eggs, cottage cheese, and sour cream in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add mushroom mixture to cottage cheese mixture, and stir to incorporate.
- Transfer to buttered casserole dish.
- Top with shredded gruyere or cheddar cheese.
- Cover with foil; cook for 20 minutes. Remove foil, cook until browned on top (about 10 more minutes).
- Garnish with green onions or chives, if desired.
Notes
- Pre-cook the rice before assembling this casserole to save time. Store cooked rice in an airtight container in the fridge, or freeze in portions in ziplock bags (squeeze the air out first) if you want to cook ahead in bulk. Use the portions for this casserole or other recipes, like soup.
- Freezer directions: Assemble the entire casserole and refrigerate (for a week) or freeze (for up to 6 months) in an airtight container until you are ready to bake.
- The provided nutrition information does not include any added sodium from seasoning to taste, any optional ingredients, and it does not take brands into account. Feel free to calculate it yourself using this calculator or by adding the recipe to Yummly.
Nutrition
Nutrition Information Disclaimer
The provided nutrition information is my best estimate and reflects one serving of the recipe (total servings indicated at top of recipe card). It does not include any added sodium from seasoning to taste, any optional ingredients, and it does not take brands into account. I use an automatic API to calculate this information. Feel free to calculate it yourself using one of these tools:
Harry
Specified cooking time is too short. Remove foil after 45 minutes and let it go for another 10 to crisp the top.
In a 10×13 glass dish, elevation 900, and all the water was cooked out of the shrooms.
Elizabeth Lindemann
Thanks for sharing this feedback – I’m going to look into this carefully next time I make this and I’ll update the recipe as needed. Until then, thanks for sharing the timing you used!
Jessica
Flavorful and delicious ! I made this for my family for lunch and my kids (who say they don’t like wild rice) ate it up! My mother-in-law asked for the recipe. Another success from Bowl of Delicious!
Elizabeth Lindemann
Yay! So glad you – and everyone else – liked it!
Camille Hewlett
Thirty minutes cooking time?
In a 8×8” casserole dish, I’m up to. an hour in the oven and it’s still too wet to slice. I hope it’s worth the wait.
Did anyone else experience a longer baking time?
Elizabeth Lindemann
Oh no! Sorry you had this frustrating experience. I find baking times for anything often vary due to many different factors, and here’s my guess for this recipe: 1) you may need a larger dish, so the casserole is thinner and bakes faster, or 2) if there is a lot of water content, it may take longer (this can be from not cooking the veggies long enough, or using certain brands of cottage cheese/sour cream, or lower fat or fat free versions of these). Hope it ended up coming out good for you in the end, even if it took a while! I have a slew of older recipes on the blog that I need to go back and cook again, since I’ve learned a lot about writing recipes over the years, so I’m going to add this to my list to remake and see if I can be more specific in the directions and troubleshoot this problem for other readers. Thank you for bringing this to my attention :-)
Camille Hewlett
I appreciate your reply. I actually used a 9×9 casserole dish and I didn’t cook the onions long enough. I enjoyed this dish but won’t be making it again. I do wish you well!
Sara
Super excited to make this.
Do you do calorie counts on your recipes?
Thanks.!! :)
Elizabeth
I’m in the process of going through my old recipes and adding nutrition information. I just fixed this one to have it! Looks like one serving (assuming the casserole serves 6) has about 365 calories. Keep in mind, this is just my best estimate. Hope that helps, and hope you like it!
Raul de Brigard
How man servings does this recipe make? If anyone has tried it, let me know.
Elizabeth
Looks like I forgot to include that information in the post- thanks for flagging that! This serves 4-6 people, depending on how hungry they are :-) Hope that helps, and hope you like it!
Joni Vetne
This wild rice and mushroom casserole is delicious!
Elizabeth
Yay! Glad you liked it! :-)
Kat
Think I could swap the sour cream for plain Greek yogurt?
Elizabeth
I don’t see why not!
crazyforcrust
Okay, I really want to make this for dinner soon! Pinned!
Elizabeth
I hope you like it! Thanks for pinning!
Brian
We have a bag of wild rice that I just haven’t been able to figure out what to make with it…well you just helped with that!! Looks great!
Elizabeth
Hooray! Is it that bag of wild rice from Trader Joe’s that you HAVE to buy because it’s so cheap even though it takes you 2 years to use it? Because that’s what happened to me until I discovered this recipe. Hope you like it!