The Easy Way To Prevent Dry Tuna Casserole

Making a casserole is one of the best ways to upgrade canned tuna, and a great one should have a few elements: Noodles that don't fall apart and good-quality seafood are just two key factors. But even if you're using the tastiest, most top-shelf ingredients, it won't matter if the final product gets all dried out while it's in the oven, leaving you with a seriously unpalatable pile of fish, noodles, and cheese.

Fortunately, there's a pretty easy way around this problem: Cook all the components of your casserole before you put the dish together and bake it. The logic here is pretty simple – certain dry ingredients will soak up the casserole's moisture while you bake it, drying it out. While there are ways to rehydrate the casserole (for example, by adding fat or some water or broth), it's easier to avoid these rescue attempts in the first place.

The two main culprits here are noodles and flour (if you're making a white, roux-like sauce for your casserole — although not all recipes call for this), thanks to their starchiness. Cook the pasta in advance and its starch content will be lower, preventing it from taking on too much moisture. Flour is a bit more of a no-brainer: You'll generally prepare your roux sauce before putting the casserole together (rather than just throwing dry flour into the mix), but it's worth making sure the sauce is properly mixed and moist enough so that flour doesn't account for any extra absorption.

Of course, some cooks aren't fans of the idea of pre-cooking pasta before adding it to your casserole. Their argument is that fully cooking your noodles before baking the casserole can make them mushy and unpleasant — basically, it's the opposite problem where things are too moist. If you're wary of this, there's a happy medium you can strike. Soak your uncooked pasta or noodles in a bowl of warm salty water for around 45 minutes before you add them into the mix. This way, you give them a little extra moisture and some of the starch will leach out into the water (which you'll discard), so they won't suck up all the moisture, but also won't get mushy. You can try just par-boiling the noodles before adding them, but it can be difficult to predict the exact timing that will result in the noodles being perfectly cooked when the casserole comes out of the oven.

Finally, bear in mind that you probably don't need to worry about ingredients like peas or canned tuna causing dryness: They'll generally be packed with moisture when they go into the baking dish. Plus, it doesn't hurt to cover your casserole with foil as it bakes, especially if the top is crisping up quickly.