How Many Calories... in a serving of green bean casserole?

It's the holidays, which means families gathering together for home-cooked meals. It can be tough to keep track of how many calories you're consuming since homemade foods don't come with nutrition labels. It would seem like a healthy rule of thumb to fill your plate with mainly vegetable dishes, right? Not always.

Green bean casserole is one of my favorite holiday foods. But how many calories are in one serving of traditional green bean casserole?

A) 70 calories, 2 grams of fat
B) 120 calories, 5 grams of fat
C) 275 calories, 10 grams of fat
D) 500 calories, 18 grams of fat

The correct answer is C) 275 calories, 10 grams of fat

Keep in mind that there are several variations of this recipe so the exact nutritional information will vary. This calorie and fat information is for one side-dish sized serving serving (approximately 1/6 of a casserole baked in a 9x9 pan) using green beans, cream of mushroom soup, milk, seasonings and french fried onions for the topping. These numbers aren't horrible, but when you consider the fact that this is just one small side dish meant to be served wih other sides and a main dish, that's a lot of calories and fat.

The main problem here is the topping. Those french fried onions more than double the calorie count and quadruple the fat content of the casserole alone.

Love the casserole but freaked out by all those fat and calories? Hungry Girl has a version of this casserole with only 80 calories and 1 gram of fat per serving.