The “freshman 15” is a pretty predictable college situation. The combination of 24-hour dining halls, lack of organized mealtimes and homecooked food, lack of structured sports practices, and, well, beer, can all be blamed. In my case, going from a home where my parents cooked delicious food to a dorm where the food was, in my opinion, subpar, and walking everywhere had a surprisingly opposite effect – I lost my freshman 15. In the dining hall, everything tasted about the same level of “blah” but nutrition information was displayed so I always just picked the healthiest option, drowned it in cholula or sriracha, and went from there.

Oddly, hominy was a staple of the Texas Tech dining hall in the early 2000s. I had never encountered hominy before college, so I lovingly referred to it as “mutant corn” – and I usually ate a scoop if it was an option (I actually wasn’t far off – hominy IS kind of a mutant corn). During that same time, I started dating my husband and his family also, shockingly, served mutant corn often. Their hominy was far superior to dorm hominy, so in the 13 years since eating it the first time, I’ve never found a need to cook it any other way.

This hominy is the ultimate comfort casserole. It’s totally benign, it’s good leftover, and it’s so easy, I’m kind of embarrassed to put it in a blog, except that my only copy of the recipe exists in an email from my mother-in-law from 2005.

Hominy Casserole

2 cans hominy (white, yellow, or one of each)

3/4 cup sour cream

1 large or 2 small cans of diced green chiles

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

1. Preheat your oven to 350°. Stir the drained hominy, sour cream, and green chiles together. Fold in half of the cheese.
2. Pour the mixture into an 8×8 casserole dish, season with salt and pepper, and top with the remaining cheese.
3. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until cheese is bubbling.