Boomers Might Remember These 2-Ingredient Betty Crocker Noodles

Betty Crocker wasn't a real woman, but the brand has significant history with boomers. Betty herself may have been a marketing gimmick, but her legacy was — and still is — a very real thing. By the mid-1950s, homemakers in America would have immediately recognized Betty Crocker's brand and gravitated towards it as a trusted source of delicious, expert-tested recipes that would delight the whole family. In 1956, the company released "Betty Crocker's Bisquick Cookbook," which put the spotlight on the eponymous baking mix, which itself must have been seen as something of a godsend to contemporary cooks. Today, when we think of Betty Crocker, we might imagine cake mix, but the company is a sibling of Bisquick under the General Mills banner, making Betty Crocker and Bisquick a natural match.

One recipe that is just as interesting today as it was 70 years ago is a preparation for Bisquick noodles, in which the dry mix was incorporated with a whole egg to produce a dough that could be rolled out and cut. After dehydrating overnight under a tea towel, the noodles were fit for mixing with broth or gravy. We're imagining that these were the perfect sub for heavier carb-bombs in chicken and dumplings, although there's a great Bisquick recipe for those as well. Keeping with the theme of convenience, these noodles would have been a blessing to tired homemakers who didn't want to futz with flour and seasonings to make their own scratch noodles ... a two-ingredient hack that holds up even today.

We're ready to try our hands at this take on homemade egg noodles now and experiment with updating them for the 21st century. While Facebook posts are full of fond memories of these noodles from those whose boomer relatives made them in the past, we don't see why their ease and tastiness can't satisfy the bellies of a new generation. We're pretty sure that the secret is using them in the correct application. They'd likely be too stodgy for chicken noodle soup, for instance, but they might just replace the best type of noodles for turkey tetrazzini, another retro classic we love to revitalize. A replacement for pasta? Probably not, because we're picturing some lovably lumpy noodles as opposed to smooth, sleek ribbons. Sopped up with gravy as an offbeat starchy side dish for baked chicken on a weeknight? Sign us up!

One of the neatest aspects of living in the digital age isn't the 24/7 access to FoodTok and memes lampooning politicians; it's the heartwarming way that old recipes get new attention by way of someone's aunt or grandma passing down a recipe card and it finally making its well-deserved way to the World Wide Web. Bisquick noodles may be peak boomer food, but we're proud to say that we wouldn't mind dishing them up on our modern tables ... and sharing the lore behind Betty Crocker, the fictional, fabulous doyenne of the American home for over 100 years.