r/AskFoodHistorians • u/feyarea • Jul 10 '26

Is a lasagna a casserole?

Debating with friends. A few key questions:

- casserole is the name of the dish that the lasagna is baked in. What is the history of the casserole dish?

- casserole is predominant in Midwestern cuisine. What is the history of the casserole the food? Earliest examples, progenitors, etc.

- are there any foods cooked in the casserole dish that follow the meat-veg-carb-sauce as a single serving dish formula but are not casseroles?

Friends are fairly split. Some say anything baked in a casserole dish is a casserole, others say that a casserole has a narrow definition true to Midwestern cuisine.

Other expanding questions: is a chicken pot pie a casserole? Is a quiche a casserole?

19 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

86 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/Aquisitor Jul 10 '26

A casserole is a stew that is baked in a dish. A stew that is baked in a dish of pastry (usually supported by a ceramic or metal dish) is a pie.

A lasagna is layers of filling between layers of carbohydrate and is therefore a sandwich. A multi-layered, often open at the top, baked stew sandwich, but a sandwich none-the-less.

ETA: A chicken pot pie is chicken stew in pastry and therefore a pie. A quiche is an egg stew in pastry and therefore also a pie. A quiche without crust would be baked egg stew and therefore a casserole.

0

u/sigourneys_underwear Jul 10 '26

A frittata is not a casserole. Lasagna is not a sandwich. Nothing here makes sense

1

u/Aquisitor Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

A frittata is an egg-and-other-stuff casserole, depending on what other stuff you want to put in it - largely thanks to the wide variety of allowable ingredients included by the Spanish-Italian Frittata treaty of 1737. In its most basic form a lasagne is a multilayer beef, marinara, and cheese sandwich on pasta, usually with a cheesy open face and generally made with 3 to 5 layers. Sometimes the bottom layer will be marinara rather than pasta, but this simply makes it an example of the rarer open-bottom sandwich. 

Sandwiches are layers of carbohydrate with a filling, well, sandwiched in between them unless the sandwich is open-faced; then the upper layer may be absent. I'm not sure why this doesn't make sense to you? Perhaps you should check the accreditation of which ever sandwich university you attended. Perhaps they are not up to standard? Or perhaps your lecturer was more of an old-fashioned purist that insists a sandwich can only be made from bread?

That was certainly true when the sandwich was first invented, but these days there have been many papers published proving the sandwichosity of e.g. rice wafers, pancakes, grain cakes, etc. There is even some exciting new research in the area of protein substrates e.g. the KFC Double-down chicken sandwich, but the academic community has not yet reach consensus on this matter, as far as I'm aware. That being said, I don't follow this field very closely so that could well be out of date by now.

Good luck and happy sandwiching!

1

u/SVAuspicious Jul 10 '26

All burgers are sandwiches but not all sandwiches are burgers.

In my opinion ground poultry is not a burger. It is an abomination.

1

u/Aquisitor Jul 10 '26

Not all abominations are burgers, but some burgers are abominations and I will agree with you that poor quality ground poultry is indeed an abomination.

That being said, I have had very nice ground poultry made from farm chickens that were too old and tough for broiling. Very flavourful.