Minnesota Hotdish: Church Basement Casserole Explained

Minnesota hotdish is a one-dish meal baked in a single pan: a starch, a meat and a vegetable held together with canned soup, usually cream of mushroom. The earliest known printed recipe comes from a church cookbook in southern Minnesota. It is the food of church suppers, funerals and family reunions, and nearly every hotdish is a casserole, though not every casserole is a hotdish.

What makes a casserole a Minnesota hotdish?

A hotdish is a casserole from the Upper Midwest, cooked in one baking dish and built from a few simple parts. There is a starch, such as potatoes, noodles or rice. There is a meat, most often ground beef. There is a canned or frozen vegetable, such as green beans or corn. And there is canned soup, which acts as the binder and the sauce.

Cream of mushroom is the usual soup, so common that some cookbooks have called it the Lutheran binder. Experts quoted in news coverage do not know why people in Minnesota and western Wisconsin say hotdish when the rest of the country says casserole. The word may describe a dish served hot.

Where did the first hotdish recipe come from?

The earliest known use of the word is in a church ladies' aid cookbook from southern Minnesota. The recipe in it used hamburger, onions, pasta, celery, peas, tomato soup and tomatoes. It was a church fundraiser, which is typical: the dish grew up in kitchens that cooked for crowds on a budget.

Casseroles became popular across the United States in the 1920s, helped by ovens with steady temperatures and a wider range of canned goods. They stretched leftover meat, which mattered during the Great Depression and World War II. Campbell's began canned cream of mushroom soup in 1934, and the soup-as-sauce habit followed.

Where does tater tot hotdish come from?

This version is the one most people picture: ground beef and vegetables in a cream of mushroom sauce, topped with a layer of tater tots. The tots came later than the dish. Ore-Ida created the tater tot in the 1950s as a way to use potato scraps, and it sold poorly at first, so the company marketed it as a casserole topping.

Historians say tots did not become a staple of hotdish until much later. A good tater tot hotdish has crisp tops, a soft middle and enough sauce to hold it together. Wild rice, a Minnesota crop, has also become a popular starch, in versions with chicken and mushrooms.

What happens at a church basement potluck?

A church basement potluck is a long table of covered dishes, with several hotdishes in the middle. Beside them you will find potato salad, coleslaw, gelatin salads and plates of bars for dessert. Hotdish is a staple at family reunions, funerals, church suppers and neighborhood gatherings, because it travels well, feeds a crowd and keeps warm in a covered pan.

The etiquette is simple. Take a little of several dishes, bring your plate back for more and ask the cook for the recipe. A name card on each pan usually tells you whose it is. If you are invited, bring something that can be eaten with a fork and carried with two hands.

What is the Congressional Hotdish Off?

The Congressional Hotdish Off began after the 2010 midterm elections, when Senator Al Franken invited Minnesota's congressional delegation to a friendly cooking contest. Senator Amy Klobuchar won the first one with a taconite tater tot hotdish, and Representative Tim Walz placed second with a chicken, mushroom and wild rice entry. It became an annual event, and in 2018 a tater tot, sausage and bacon entry won.

The contest shows how much the dish has become a symbol of Minnesota identity. Food historians say that hotdish has become a way of saying where you are from, which is why people debate what counts.

How do you order or cook hotdish today?

Few places serve hotdish every day, but it appears on diner menus, at church suppers and at community events. Ask whether it is made in house, what the binder is and whether the tots are a topping or an ingredient. If you are cooking it, make enough to share, because the dish is meant for a crowd. The formula is simple: brown the meat, add vegetables and soup, top with tots and bake until bubbling.

To read the family tree of Upper Midwest cooking, see the Midwest regional foods guide and the Minnesota foods guide. For a thin-crust Midwest classic, read about St. Louis-style pizza. The US food guides have more.

How can Mosey help you keep a hotdish record?

Home cooking is hard to find on a map, but easy to remember. When you rate a place on Mosey, rate the dish and use the note for the binder, the topping and the portion. Add tags such as Family Friendly, then follow friends to see what they rate and save.

Start a list of potlucks and suppers you want to try, and add a line about when each one runs. Share it by link with family, so everyone can add a cook. Rating five different places of one kind earns the Sampler mark, and the Dishes page shows what people are rating near you.

Get the Mosey app, rate the next hotdish you taste by the dish and keep a list of the suppers you want to join.