Update: I found a 1955 Good Housekeeping magazine at a thrift store this week. And to my delight but not surprise, it had not one but two recipes for tuna casserole. One was just like the recipe below except served with whole potato chips on top. The other was made with tuna and macaroni. While I knew it was a mid- century favourite it is nice to have the proof in ink. -B
This is another dish that baby boomers will remember well. Often called Tuna Noodle Surprise by some but really it was never that much of a surprise. Tuna and egg noodles were cheap, fast and easy to cook. This dish was exactly the kind of thing housewives were encouraged to make on a busy day. It took very little time to prepare and could sit in a warm oven all afternoon.
Perhaps every mother in the mid-century had their own recipe of this. You can use any meat or protein in place of tuna. Any noodles or frozen or fresh vegetables will work as long as you cook them first. Some people used another variety of cream soup or topped the casserole with bread crumbs or just cheese. But I like the variation with crushed potato chips on top. I knew someone who used salt and vinegar potato chips to top her tuna surprise for a zingy, decidedly exotic taste-by mid-century standards anyway.
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked egg noodles
1 can of tuna drained
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
milk to fill 1/2 soup can
I cup canned peas drained
1 cup grated cheese to top
2 cups of potato chips crushed to finish
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix together cooked noodles, soup, tuna, veg and milk in a 2 or 3 quart casserole dish. Bake for 30 minutes, remove from oven then stir. If adding cheese place it on top as soon the dish has been removed from oven. Finally spread a thin layer of crushed potato chips on top just before serving.
Oh, I just thought about why it may have been called surprise. Because the recipe is so adaptable and open to substitutions its ingredients might be a surprise every time. Maybe the surprise in the tuna noodle surprise would be that it sometimes contained chicken, macaroni and lima beans. Mom may have made it from whatever was “on special” at the grocery store that week.
