Classic Family Dinners That Deserve A Comeback

When you imagine a classic, retro family dinner, what do you envision? The image your mind conjures probably looks a lot different from the weeknight dinners of the modern era. A nuclear family sits down to a meal that consists of some sort of mystery meat dish, plus maybe something encased in Jell-O, and, depending on where you live in the country, you might also imagine a salad that's not really a salad, with all the veggies swapped out for canned cocktail fruit, candy, and/or even mayonnaise. However, while these are the kinds of classic dinners that you maybe could live without, there are plenty of other vintage family dinner staples that have been lost to time and that do, in fact, deserve a revival.

We're talking rib-sticking, comfort food favorites that were often cobbled together on a shoestring budget, or with limited ingredients, and that are many times easy enough to prepare for even the greenest of home cooks. Here are some classic family dinners that deserve a comeback — no Jell-O mold required. Salisbury steak If you only know of Salisbury steak from T.



V. dinners in the frozen meal aisle, and aren't really sure what exactly it is, other than a piece of meat smothered in brown gravy, you might be wary when we tell you that . If you've never had it before, think of Salisbury steak as part-meatloaf, part-hamburger, all goodness, particularly for the carnivores among us.

Invented in the 1800s by a Dr. James Salisbury, who prescribed a meat-heavy diet to treat certain ailments, Salisbury steak is made by crafting a patty using ground beef and binding ingredients, much like how you might make a meatloaf. However, instead of forming a loaf, you form a patty.

You can then pan fry it like you would a burger, then cover it in gravy. Serve it with spuds and a few green vegetables and you have a well-rounded, comfort food-favorite meal. The best part? Unlike a meatloaf, that can often take an hour-plus to bake, Salisbury steaks go from mixing bowl to dinner plate in just half an hour.

So, if you love meatloaf, but don't have much time on your hands, go the Salisbury steak route. Your tastebuds and schedule will thank you. Tuna casserole The mighty casserole is often unfairly criticized as unhealthy or old-fashioned.

While, yes, most casseroles can be heavy on the starches and cheese, and they're certainly not as popular now as they were several decades ago, casseroles offer far more benefits than drawbacks. They're cheap. They're often made with common pantry ingredients.

They're easy. They're a complete dinner in one dish. comes with its own unique benefits.

Tuna is mixed in with your favorite pasta, some veggies, and a sauce made from a can of condensed soup and some common condiments. Cheddar cheese and breadcrumbs top it all. So why choose tuna casserole over another? Tuna doesn't require the extra thawing and cooking time that you'll need for a chicken or ground beef-based casserole.

Additionally, canned tuna is more affordable and shelf stable. If you've ever added tuna to your pasta, or you love a great tuna salad, chances are likely that you'll enjoy tuna casserole, too, so give it a try and see the benefits for yourself. Fondue With all the love for charcuterie and cheese boards today, why in the world have we not revived fondue? Why is fondue at home, in the style of the , sneered at? Why have most modern diners relegated their experience of this cheesy delight to trips to The Melting Pot, if that? The only drawback to fondue is that it requires the initial investment of purchasing a fondue pot.

After that, there are no downsides. Most basic cheese fondue recipes require minimal ingredients, as do basic chocolate fondue recipes. These recipes take minutes to come together and prepping the ingredients to dip into said cheese or chocolate is the lengthiest part of the process.

There are no rules to fondue, either. If you want to dip it, you can. Fruits, vegetables, bread, crackers, steak, chicken, marshmallows, cookies — whatever you have on hand is fair game.

Plus, because fondue is so versatile, it's also affordable, just as it was in Switzerland in the 1700s as a way to stretch ingredients over the long winter months. Macaroni loaf While meatloaf has subsisted over the decades, for some reason the macaroni loaf hasn't enjoyed the same longevity. If you're not familiar with this retro dinner item, don't mistake it for another product that is also confusingly known as macaroni and cheese loaf, but that's more of a lunch meat item.

It's a pork and beef-based loaf spotted with macaroni and cheese, a bit like pickle loaf. No, the classic macaroni loaf is more akin to baked macaroni and cheese. After cooking your macaroni and cheese, you combine it with some binding ingredients, like an egg, much as you would do when making meatloaf.

Then, you press it into a loaf pan and top it with shredded cheese. When it's done baking, you have a sliceable loaf of mac and cheese. The slice-ability is really what makes this dish stand out from your standard baked mac — you can literally slice it and eat it on a sandwich (again, like you would a meatloaf sandwich).

Otherwise, get creative with it, adding extras like bacon or diced ham to your loaf. Souper burgers You may not think you're familiar with souper burgers, but if you've ever had a sloppy joe, then you'll get the gist. The original souper burgers were advertised by Campbell's as a way to use the brand's canned soups.

Essentially, you'd take ground beef, brown it, and add in a can of Campbell's soup, as well as maybe a few other seasonings and condiments, and then serve the resulting mixture on a bun. For example, the onion souper burger combined browned ground beef, a few tablespoons of flour as a thickening agent, and then a can of Campbell's onion soup. The Creole souper burger combined browned ground beef, onions, ketchup, mustard, pepper, and a can of Campbell's chicken gumbo soup.

It's very much a sloppy Joe, just with a can of soup, so if you like a sloppy Joe, but would like something a little different or more creative, a souper burger is where it's at. Plus, just as is the case with a sloppy Joe, any souper burger recipe you find will be quick and affordable, and require minimal ingredients. Rarebit No, there's nothing "rare" in this comfort food.

The Welsh rarebit, invented by the British in the 1700s, is a sandwich that's fallen out of vogue in the United States, but that could certainly see a resurgence. It is, at its core, a slightly fancy grilled cheese sandwich. It's equally easy and equally simple, but tastier and just a tad more impressive.

To , all you do is toast some bread on one side, under a broiler, while you're making a cheese sauce. The cheese sauce will differ depending on your recipe, but often includes cheese, eggs, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Hot sauce and/or beer is also sometimes added, and the cheese may vary.

You can use the standard shredded cheddar you already have on hand, or opt for something stronger, like Gruyère. Spread this sauce mixture over the bread, and toast it until the cheese sauce starts to brown, and you have rarebit. Stuffed peppers If you're thinking "stuffed peppers" and you're only thinking of the standard green bell peppers packed with a mixture of rice and ground beef, you're severely underestimating what all this classic dinner can and should be.

With so many pepper options in the world, and so many stuffing varieties, a stuffed pepper can be a quick, easy, affordable, one-dish dinner that comes in unending shapes and forms. Need ideas? Keep the classic bell peppers, but give them with ground beef or sausage, mozzarella, marinara, and pepperoni. Go Mediterranean and slightly unexpected with a .

Try a , with nacho cheese and all your favorite toppings. Ditch the bell peppers and try stuffing other peppers for a change, . Of course, you can always go classic, but make a few simple swaps to such as by subbing part of the ground beef for chorizo, or your cheddar cheese for gouda.

Chicken croquettes Croquettes in general aren't exactly popping up in droves at your office potluck these days. A European invention, croquettes are deep-fried nuggets of goodness, with differing fillings that range from mashed potatoes and cheese to fish and veggies — and in the mid-20 century, chicken croquette recipes could be found in American mainstream cookbooks. While chicken croquettes aren't as simple or as quick to make as some of the other vintage foods recommended on this list, if you can make fried chicken, you can make chicken croquettes.

Recipes call for a simple mix of cooked, diced chicken; seasonings; lemon juice; onions; parsley; and something known back in the day as "white sauce," essentially a roux-based sauce, made with butter, flour, and milk. This mixture is refrigerated and then formed into balls. Then, you bread the formed croquettes using eggs and cracker crumbs, before deep frying.

The result is a savory, succulent bite. Chicken cordon bleu Chicken cordon bleu was the height of fancy in the 1970s, but you don't see it around much anymore. While its origins are murky, the dish first appeared in American print in a United Airlines ad, a nod to the equally elegant flying experience of the day.

Now, you'll be hard-pressed to find chicken cordon bleu served in economy, but you can easily make this delicious dish at home, with minimal ingredients. Maybe you'll even host a dinner party and serve it to your very impressed guests. All you need to do is flatten some chicken breasts, roll them tightly around slices of deli ham and Swiss cheese, refrigerate the rolled chicken in cling film so it retains its shape, and then bread and fry the chicken.

When you later cut into the finished chicken, you're treated to a beautiful and tasty swirl of chicken, ham, and melty cheese. Chicken fricassee Chicken fricassee is a budget-friendly comfort food that, while French in origin, gained popularity in the United States during the Great Depression. You could use this cooking style, which calls for slow cooking a piece of meat in its own juices over a long period of time, to turn an otherwise tough cut of chicken tender, while also stretching a small amount of chicken over multiple portions or meals.

To make chicken fricassee, all you do is brown your chicken pieces, use the leftover oil to make a roux, then return the chicken to your pot with vegetables, water, and seasonings. You then let the fricassee thicken and slowly simmer over a few hours. You'll end up with a rich, hearty meal in a gravy-like sauce, perfect for serving over rice, mashed potatoes, or any other starch that can help soak up all that saucy deliciousness, such as egg noodles.

Chicken à la king Chicken à la king is somewhat similar to chicken fricassee, so far as it's a chicken-based meal in a creamy sauce, served on some sort of absorbent base. It was very popular in the United States in the 1950s, but you're not going to find it on many dinner tables today — which is a shame, because it requires few ingredients, those ingredients it does require are affordable, and it comes together quickly. This is a comfort food that's low effort, high reward.

Vintage chicken à la king recipes call for you to make a roux, and then add milk or a chicken stock and milk mixture to that roux to create a sauce. Then, you add in your cooked chicken, peppers, olives, mushrooms, and hard-boiled eggs. When done, you serve the chicken à la king on a pastry base (like puff pastry) or on top of biscuits.

Chicken à la king is fairly versatile, though, so if you don't like some of these ingredients, leave them out. Likewise, if you want to add in other veggies or seasonings, go ahead. Beef stroganoff As is the case with so many vintage recipes, beef stroganoff began as a budget-conscious way to feed a family.

Brought to the United States by European immigrants, the dish could stretch a cut of meat further, combining it with filling noodles in a gravy-like sauce. Vintage beef stroganoff recipes differ. Some call for the addition of condensed soup, which would've made perfect sense during the mid-20 century, when canned soup was a go-to shortcut whenever and wherever possible.

Many, though, stick with the basics: a large cut of beef, cooked in a gravy made with Worcestershire, broth, mushrooms, and sour cream. These vintage recipes, though, might call for you to cook the beef for multiple hours, in order to turn a cheaper cut tender. Luckily, modern-day countertop appliances can help you avoid this long wait.

to cook your preferred cut of meat in a mere 20 minutes. You'll be able to enjoy all the budget-friendly benefits of beef stroganoff, even in a time crunch. Chicken Kiev Despite its name, chicken Kiev wasn't invented in Kyev.

Instead, Russian chefs took the recipe from the French in the mid-1800s. Then, post-World War II, the dish became popular in fine dining restaurants in the United States. As was the case with so many trending dishes of the day, and even to Costco, but you don't have to settle for the frozen variation if you'd like to try this vintage eat.

Traditionally, chicken Kiev is made by pounding chicken flat and then rolling it around butter before frying it. However, if you want to take a simpler route, you can cut a small slit into each chicken breast and insert your seasoned butter that way, before frying the breasts. When you cut into the chicken, the melted, golden butter is released, making for an extremely moist, succulent dish.

Much like chicken croquettes and chicken cordon bleu, it's a tasty masterpiece that our parents and grandparents knew would impress at any dinner party. Porcupine meatballs While not a dinner party staple, porcupine meatballs are certainly still fun, named for their likeness to the animal. Popular in the Great Depression, they required minimal ingredients and could make ground beef go further.

In 1948, a Hunt's tomato sauce ad that provided a recipe for the meatballs even proclaimed that the meal worked out to cost just a few cents per serving. Today, porcupine meatballs are still cheap to make, and just as easy as making any other type of meatballs. Additionally, because they sub out rice for breadcrumbs, they're a nice gluten-free alternative.

The swapping of breadcrumbs for rice is really the one differentiator that makes these meatballs stand out. The rice is cheap, but also more filling than bread. Some vintage recipes instruct you to allow the meatballs to simmer in canned soup, tomato being the preferred variety, but if that's a little too vintage for your tastes, consider just using tomato or marinara sauce instead.

You can then serve the meatballs any way you might normally. Chicken tetrazzini Invented in the early 1900s and named for Luisa Tetrazzini, an opera singer who performed at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, where the chef supposedly created the dish in her honor (though other accounts contradict this, and say another chef in New York City was already cooking the dish under the same name), chicken tetrazzini was served in fine dining restaurants before it became a family dinner favorite. A versatile casserole, the only true requirements for a tetrazzini are some sort of noodles, a protein, mushrooms, and a creamy parmesan sauce.

While chicken is a popular choice for the protein, so is turkey or even tuna. While egg noodles appear in some tetrazzini recipes, many others use spaghetti or vermicelli. Various vegetables find their way into the mix as well, but those can likewise differ, depending on what you like and what you have on hand.

Button or cremini mushrooms can work, so pick your preference. In short, tetrazzini is one of those classic casseroles that you can adapt to your tastes, budget, and time. Steak Diane Another vintage dish that was once a fine dining classic that eventually made its way to the average Joe's dinner table, before being more or less lost to the sands of time (though you can still ), steak Diane is named for Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt.

This is because, originally, the sauce was served over venison. Now, steak Diane is more so associated with beef steaks. In its heyday, the steak would be cooked, and then the pan deglazed with cognac and flambeed table-side.

Then, the sauce, made with cream, broth, mushrooms, Worcestershire, and mustard, would come together in the deglazed pan, before finding its way to the plate. If you want to make this vintage dinner at home, there's no need for any potentially dangerous flambéing, though. Even without it, the sauce will upgrade your average steak and you may be surprised at just how easy it is to make.

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