ALL ABOUT: OVEN-READY CASSEROLES

Classic casseroles like chicken pot pie, lasagna, and baked ziti are guaranteed crowd-pleasers, but they can be hard to pull off on an already hectic weeknight. So the ability to make these favorites ahead of time and stash them in the fridge has lots of appeal. For this chapter, we baked through our favorites plus several inventive new cover-and-bake dishes. We found that most casseroles couldn’t stand up to overnight storage without adverse effect—pasta turned to mush, vegetables became flavorless and drab, and chicken dried out. To make these dishes taste just as good when made ahead, we needed to rethink some of our techniques for preparing casseroles. Here’s what we learned.

Parcook the Pasta

For most pasta casseroles, parcooking is necessary to ensure that the pasta turns tender once reheated. But it’s easy to cook the pasta too much, leaving it mushy by the time it gets to the table. For the best results, it was important to cook the pasta just until it began to soften, then drain it and rinse it with cold water to stop the cooking. As the casserole baked the next day, the undercooked pasta soaked up some of the liquid from the sauce, turning perfectly tender. To ensure that the sauce wouldn’t end up overly thick and dry as the dish reheated and the pasta finished cooking, we thinned it with some pasta cooking water before assembling the casserole.

Treat Chicken Gently

For our chicken casseroles, we used two different approaches to ensure that the chicken stayed moist and tender throughout cooling and reheating. For casseroles using cubed or shredded chicken, we found that poaching the chicken in the casserole base before assembling the dish boosted the moistness of the chicken and improved its flavor. For our classic chicken and rice casseroles, we wanted to use larger pieces of chicken. To flavor the chicken and keep it from overcooking, we salted the raw chicken and marinated it overnight to help it retain its juices and allow it to absorb flavor, then we simply baked the chicken through in the casserole on the second day.

Wrap Tightly and Heat Gently

To ensure that make-ahead casseroles emerge from the oven moist and saucy, it is important to cover them tightly with aluminum foil to trap steam and prevent moisture loss. Heating casseroles gently in a moderate oven prevents uneven cooking. For pasta, rice, and grain casseroles, it is also necessary to stir the ingredients occasionally; this helps to redistribute the liquid so that it is uniformly absorbed and the dish cooks evenly.

Soak Rice and Grains Overnight

We wanted to develop hearty, healthy rice and grain casseroles that would be moist and flavorful and easy to make. The trick was to find a way to get perfectly tender, evenly cooked rice and grains in a casserole. We knew we would need to avoid fully cooking the rice and grains before assembling and storing the casseroles to prevent the grains from getting blown out and mushy overnight. Soaking them overnight proved to be an ideal solution. First we created a flavorful base by sautéing plenty of aromatics, then we transferred the mixture to a casserole dish and stirred in the uncooked rice or grains along with plenty of broth and/or water. As the rice and grains soaked in the fragrant broth mixture overnight, they absorbed some of the broth, which both tenderized and flavored them and helped to shorten their cooking time in the oven. Stirring the dish a few times while it baked the next day ensured that the grains cooked through evenly.

Keep Broccoli Bright and Fresh

To keep broccoli and broccoli rabe bright and fresh in our casseroles, we tried stirring them in raw before reheating, but they didn’t cook fully before the casseroles were done. Instead, we quickly blanched and shocked the broccoli, then stored it separately. The broccoli needed only a few more minutes of cooking, so we stirred it into the dish during the last 10 minutes of baking, preserving its crisp-tender texture and bright color.