The recipe on this site is an independent recreation. These are Damaris Phillips’s published cookbooks — the real thing, in the chef’s own words.
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Tuna noodle casserole is the dish that food media has been trying to rehabilitate for thirty years, and Damaris Phillips — Food Network Star winner, host, co-founder of Bluegrass Supper Club catering, and the chef behind Southern Fried Charm in Louisville — did not need rehabilitating. She needed to execute a dish she already understood as a structural composition: cream sauce, protein, starch, crust.
Phillips built her béchamel with a high roux ratio, 3:3:1 butter-to-flour-to-milk by volume, creating a sauce thick enough to hold the noodles in suspension rather than pool at the bottom. She used tuna packed in oil, not water — more fat, more flavor, and it doesn't dilute the sauce. Her breadcrumb topping went on at the last ten minutes of a 375°F bake, added late to prevent burning while the interior finished setting.
Bobby's casserole was reportedly under-seasoned and thin. A sauce that pools is not a sauce — it is a problem Damaris Phillips knew how to solve before she walked in the door.