Make-Ahead Casseroles for Easy Weeknight Dinners

This recipe featuring mashed potatoes, pulled chicken and crispy bacon yields comfort food at its best.

The flavors of Italy are tied together neatly here with garlic and rosemary inflected stock, making this weeknight meal extra-special.

This luscious squash-studded bread pudding is the ideal accompaniment to roasted meats and birds, or cut it into large squares and serve as a main course with a green salad on the side.

Delicious and easy to make and serve, this frittata-like casserole is just the kind of dish that F&W's Justin Chapple likes to serve as a first course at dinner parties. He slices the baked casserole into bite-size squares and tops them with a dollop of creme fraiche to serve with cocktails.

Sweet potatoes grow in abundance in Alabama, where sculptor Sandi Stevens' family eats them year-round. This casserole is a Stevens favorite: silky pureed sweet potatoes topped with a sweet and crunchy pecan-cornflake topping. If you don't have pecans or cornflakes on hand, Stevens says the topping can be made with whatever nut or cereal is in the cupboard.

We love the earthy porcini topping on this rich and creamy turnip gratin, but it would also be fantastic on mac and cheese or other root vegetable gratin.

F&W's Melissa Rubel Jacobson created this recipe to use up extra dried mushrooms and odds and ends of pasta. While the different pasta shapes cook at different rates in the water, they all become tender once baked.

Photographer and Alabamian Robert Rausch grew up eating vegetable casseroles--he and his mother are both vegetarians. The broccoli casserole his family ate is a step up from the standard church cookbook recipe, which calls for using canned mushroom soup: In place of that, he uses wild mushrooms. He still relies on Ritz crackers, though, for the crispy, buttery topping.

The chicken filling can be made a day a head and reheated before continuing with the recipe.

Tofu adds a subtle heft to this vegetarian casserole that is perfect for both weeknight meals and holiday tables.

The rice in this casserole filling is cooked until it starts to fall apart, thickening the liquid.

The chili for this casserole can be made 3 days ahead of time.

Inspired by classic green bean casseroles from his childhood, F&W's Justin Chapple put a Spanish spin on this timeless favorite by topping the creamy beans with smoky pimenton de la Vera and toasted almonds.

Chef Gavin Kaysen of Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis updates this classic Minnesota flavor combo with fresh herbs, tender Swiss chard and an aromatic mushroom gravy. The dish is perfect for potlucks since it can be baked a day ahead.

Hot sauce and dashes of paprika make this delicious casserole a complex-flavored dish everyone at the table will love.

Inspired by a Cuban picadillo, this recipe perfectly balances savory and sweet with warm aromatic spices, sweet raisins and tangy green olives.

This classic is updated with deep-flavored cheddar and a crunchy topping of crumbled crackers and toasted almonds.

This faux mole is made from ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry.

Simmering the reserved chicken bones in the milk increases the chicken flavor of this casserole.