The Reason The Top Of Your Casserole Burned
Casseroles are iconic in American households and are especially popular in the Midwest. In its most basic form, a casserole is a one-pot-stop made with any combination of carbs, meat, and veggies. Seriously, casseroles are as much of a hodgepodge of items as America is a mixing-pot of peoples. They are cheap, easy to make for any kind of meal, and limit the number of dishes you have to wash at the end of the day.
More often than not, they also feature some kind of cheese or breading on top just to make the crust more satisfying to break into. But those toppings tend to cause one very specific and very annoying problem — they are usually finished cooking well before the rest of the casserole is. This means that, by the time you take out what should be a delicious dish of food, you actually pull out something blackened and somewhat inedible.
How to fix it
One solution is to position your casserole in the correct spot of your oven. Yes, there are correct spots for different kinds of bakes. Sears explains that the best place in the oven to bake your casserole is in the middle of the bottom-most rack (via YouTube). This keeps the food further from direct heat and in the spot where it will be the most likely to bake evenly.
Another method is to use tin foil while baking. Tin foil doesn't burn easily — it has to reach over 660 degrees Celsius (1,222 degrees Fahrenheit,) which is incredibly difficult to achieve in an oven. People have been using tin foil for over 100 years now and since it rarely burns, it is the perfect tool to use, notes Techie Science. If you position the foil between your casserole and the oven's heat, your top should melt, not burn! Feel free to remove the tin foil at the end of your baking time to crisp it up and there you have it, a perfectly baked casserole.