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Summer Beef-and-Rice Casserole

Summer Beef-and-Rice Casserole

Everyday Food editor Sarah Carey demonstrates an unusually delicious recipe for a quick summer casserole. Watch and learn the trick to making sure the casserole cooks perfectly.

Everyday Food, September 2012
  • Prep Time 10 minutes
  • Total Time 30 minutes
  • Yield Serves 4
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Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan (1 ounce)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
  • 5 cups reserved Quick Meat Sauce (from Gnocchi with Quick Meat Sauce)
  • 1/2 cup long-grain white rice
  • 1/2 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced lengthwise
  • 2 zucchini or summer squash, very thinly sliced
  • Salt and pepper

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Combine breadcrumbs, Parmesan, and 1 tablespoon oil. In a large cast-iron skillet, bring meat sauce to a rapid simmer over high. Stir in rice and remove from heat. Top with onion, then carefully arrange zucchini in a single, slightly overlapping layer. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with remaining tablespoon oil, and top with breadcrumb mixture. Return to heat and bring to a simmer. Cover with foil and bake 10 minutes. Remove foil and bake until rice is cooked through and breadcrumbs are golden, about 10 minutes more. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Recipe Reviews

  • Lesa Roemke
    8 Nov, 2012

    This is a really good dish. I doubled the rice and the topping ingredients. The top is the best part! I like it this way, but next time I may try it with ground sausage. Check out my blog to see how mine turned out: http://www.edesiasnotebook.com/2012/08/one-pot-summer-squash-beef-and-rice.html

  • kandt
    25 Oct, 2012

    This is so delicious! The skillet was scraped clean in less than 30 minutes. My husband and son loved it. The zucchini was so good! Thank you for a great and easy recipe.

  • AndreaDwyer
    17 Oct, 2012

    oh, I also used my Calphalon pan in the oven instead of a cast iron skillet, b/c mine didn't look big enough, and it worked fine. Just check what temp. your skillet is oven safe to.

  • AndreaDwyer
    17 Oct, 2012

    This was delicious! I have been wanting to make this recipe since it came out in the magazine. I made a few changes that I recommend: I added 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes and 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning to the sauce and rice mixture, which gave it a little more flavor and a little zip. Next time I might add even more Italian seasoning, maybe 1 tsp. I also doubled the bread crumb mixture and added 1 heaping tsp. Italian seasoning to it. I made the sauce ahead, for the gnocchi, and froze it.

  • AndreaDwyer
    17 Oct, 2012

    This was delicious! I have been wanting to make this recipe since it came out in the magazine. I made a few changes that I reccomend: I added 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes and 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning to the sauce and rice mixture, which gave it a little more flavor and a little zip. Next time I might add even more Italian seasoning, maybe 1 tsp. I also doubled the bread crumb mixture and added 1 heaping tsp. Italian seasoning to it. I made the sauce ahead, for the gnocchi, and froze it.

  • Sandy Fulkerson
    24 Sep, 2012

    Oh my goodness, so good! My fiance and I loved this, and when he took it for leftovers at work the next day his colleagues were drooling and demanded the recipe. Definitely will make again.

  • Kristin Drummelsmith
    23 Sep, 2012

    This was delicious. I do not own a cast-iron skillet, so I did this instead: I heated up my sauce in a pan, and added the rice. Then, I put the mixture into a 13 x 9 glass dish. I added the rest of the ingredients, and I baked as directed, however, I increased the "covered" portion from 10 to 15 minutes to make up for the fact that I didn't simmer everything together first. It turned out delicious! The original recipe of meat sauce with the gnocci was also fantastic.