Tuna Noodle Casserole, Without the Apology

There is no shame in this meal. Well, there could be. Depends on how you do it.

Tuna Noodle Casserole is a paradoxical dish. If you go for the standard tuna noodle casserole with the can of Campbell’s it’s white trash food right up there with spray cheese. Cream of mushroom soup. Noodles cooked to mush. Crushed Ritz on top. The whole thing arrives in a 9x13 pan like a war crime.

The dish has good bones. Pasta, fish, dairy, salt, crunch. A credible architecture. The original just leans on convenience products that were never very good and when mixed somehow get worse. Strip those out, and the casserole is worth eating.

Start with the tuna, because most of what’s wrong with the dish starts there. Buy good water-packed tuna. Wild Planet or Safe Catch. The supermarket value pouches will not do. Good water-packed tuna is firm, pink, and tastes like fish that lived a full life. It also has the virtue of not bringing competing oil to the casserole. This is key. The oil is a deal breaker. The sauce is the only fat that belongs here.

And the oil is not a passive passenger. A…