Thanksgiving SOS: What Do I Do If My Green Bean Casserole Is Soupy?

There's no hard data on this, but “soupy” is probably the biggest complaint people have about green bean casserole. Sure, the ingredients usually include a can of cream of mushroom soup, but the ultimate texture should be rich and creamy instead of loose and watery.

“A soupy, thin casserole makes a mess on your Thanksgiving plate, tastes watered down and often will not support the crunchy topping,” says Blair Lonergan, the founder of The Seasoned Mom.

The Rx for a soupy casserole? Thickening. “Thickening the sauce is important because it helps the casserole hold together,” says Lauren Allen, the owner and creator of recipe website Tastes Better From Scratch and an Amazon best-selling cookbook by the same name. “Instead of being loose and watery, thickening it creates a creamy texture that coats the green beans, and it allows the other flavors to be more concentrated instead of diluted.”

How do food influencers do it? We asked Instagram-famous foodies to share their top green bean casserole thickening tips with us to make sure we all have casseroles that taste as good as they look.

The 3 Best Ways to Fix Soupy Green Bean Casserole

1. Grab the cornstarch

Chantelle Hartman Malarkey, a lifestyle blogger with more than 132K Instagram followers, says the creamier the sauce, the better the casserole. Thickening doesn't have to require much legwork or ingredients, though. If you're putting your recipe together and the sauce doesn't seem quite thick enough, you have some options.