How to Make Great Depression Casseroles: Meals For Hard Times

Today, we're going to be making one of the tastiest Great Depression meals, also known as Great Depression casserole.

Now, we all know what the Great Depression is by now. But back then, everybody was struggling to feed their families. They didn't have a lot to choose from, so they could not afford to be picky. If they were picky, they starved.

That is something that we have gotten spoiled with in America. Everybody's picky. But you couldn't afford to be picky back then. Meals from the Great Depression were created on whatever ingredients you could easily get your hands on. And many cheap meals from the Great Depression used one of two inexpensive meats: hot dogs and bologna.

Back in the Great Depression, everybody was inventive with the meals they came up with because they didn't have a lot of ingredients to choose from. So they had to experiment and just put things together.

They've made so many stews casseroles with hot dogs and bologna, mock apple pies, and steaks that weren't really steaks. They had to do what they could in order to survive. And this Great Depression casserole was actually a treat for everyone.

Great Depression Casserole

A lot of people grew their own gardens back then because that was the only way they could get fresh produce, and common meals during the Great Depression used the vegetables they actually grew themselves. For this casserole, they used onion and bell pepper. But if they didn't happen to have these on hand, they would just use whatever they could.

If it was a good time financially and somebody scored a little bit of bacon, they would put some bacon in this casserole as well. But they didn't use this whole pack of bacon. They wanted to stretch this as much as they possibly could. So we're only going to be using four slices of bacon.

How to make Great Depression casserole

The first thing we're going to do is cut us up some bell pepper. We're also going to dice up some onions as well.

Next, I'm going to start chopping up this bologna, and we are going to chop this up in small little pieces, just like the bell pepper and onion.

Now, we’ll start cooking up this bacon. I'm going to remove the bacon from the pan and chop it up in small pieces. And I'm going to add the chopped-up bell pepper, onion, and bologna to the bacon grease in the pan.

Now I'm adding that chopped-up bacon back in and I am going to cook this until everything has a nice little crust on it. A good little char gives us flavor.

Once everything is cooked and the bell pepper and onion are nice and soft, I'm going to add all this to a bowl. Then, I’ll add the can of pork and beans and both cans of the chili with beans.

Now ain't she pretty? That cheese just makes it pop. Cheese is just so beautiful. Tell me that doesn't look delicious.

I was surprised too. It looked so good. When you think of bologna, you don't think of something that looks that good. But it did. And baby, it smelled good too.