An easy and delicious hotdish featuring ground beef, pasta and corn that gets its great flavor from a few cans of prepared soup!
Hilma’s Heavenly Hotdish
This recipe for Heavenly Hotdish comes from my grandma Hilma who knew how to throw together the best-tasting, comforting meals without a lot of fuss. It’s a pretty straightforward dish with a handful of ingredients, and it’s one I often make ahead if I know we have a hectic week or if I won’t be home and need to leave the family with a hearty supper they can heat up on their own. And, this dish only gets better with time so bring on the leftovers.
Why You’ll Love Heavenly Hotdish
In my mind, there is no more perfect meal than hotdish. It’s good old comfort food at its best. Plus, as the one who typically feeds the others in my house, there is something so satisfying about serving all the components of a meal—meat, vegetables and pasta or some kind of potatoes (tator tots!)—in one baking dish for an easy supper. You could say it’s heaven!
Like most traditional hotdishes, this one includes a few cans of condensed soup, which may make some foodies scoff. You could make your own tomato soup and use fresh or frozen corn for this dish; however, if the canned versions worked for Hilma, they work for me. (Trust me, I actually tried to make my own tomato soup and used fresh corn for a new twist on this dish, and it didn’t taste nearly as good as the original!)
This is a very flavorful dish, made all the more heavenly with a dollop of sour cream mixed before baking. My grandma didn’t do this, but I love the flavor it adds along with creating a richer texture.
When I make this recipe for my family, I like to serve it on the Homer Laughlin China that once belonged to Hilma. In fact, she used to serve me Heavenly Hotdish on these very dishes when I was a young girl and would visit her at her cozy Bemidji home.
I loved our one-on-one time when she’d cook just for me, and we’d eat at TV trays in her living room to watch her stories (soap operas) and game shows. I felt so special and will always treasure my many memories of time spent with my grandma and all of her heavenly dishes!
Gluten-free and Vegetarian Versions of Heavenly Hotdish
- T o make this a vegetarian dish:
- Simply hold the meat and also replace the vegetable beef soup with a can of your favorite vegetable soup. We use Vegetarian Vegetable Soup.
- To make this a gluten-free dish:
- Swap out the pasta with a gluten-free pasta. I use Tinkyada Spirals as they are the closest thing I can find to egg noodles. This is my favorite brand of pasta whenever I need to make gluten-free pasta. It’s made from brown rice and doesn’t get mushy unlike other gluten-free noodles.
- For the soup ingredients, I use Progresso’s Tomato Basil and Beef Pot Roast Country Vegetables that are labeled gluten-free.
