For those growing up in New England, especially during the 1960s-1980s, American chop suey was ubiquitous, at restaurants, functions, school cafeterias, and at home. The basics of this casserole dish included ground beef, macaroni and tomato sauce, with some variation of other ingredients, such as the addition of onions, peppers, or even Worcestershire sauce. I ate and enjoyed plenty of this hearty dish, which was considered inexpensive and easy to prepare.

Many people believe that it is primarily a New England dish, largely unknown in the rest of the country. However, is that true? What is the actual origin of American chop suey? How did it change from the Chinese version? 

Many of the articles you’ll find on the origins of American chop suey use The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink as a main source. That book states: “A likely origin for American chop suey is the recipe for Chop Suey Stew in the ‘1916 Manual for Army Cooks’, an urtext for many institutional foods of the twentieth century. The army recipe could be made with either beef round or pork shoulder, beef stock, barbecue sauce, and salt.” 

My own research indicates this was not the case and that American chop suey originated earlier than 1916. In addition, American chop suey does not seem to have originated in New England either. It was prevalent across the entire country, under that same name, for many years.

As the 20th century began, another version of Chinese chop suey started to appear, and it became known as American chop suey. The first reference I found to it was in a 1902 newspaper and the American version wasn’t significantly different from the Chinese version, but would evolve over time.

The Pacific Commercial Advertiser (HI), December 15, 1904, presented recipes for Chinese chop suey and American chop suey. The ingredients in the two recipes varied, with the Chinese version made with chicken, pork, onion, dried mushrooms, celery, Chinese potatoes, and Chinese sauce. The American version was made with lean fresh pork shaved small, Chinese potatoes, corn starch, see yon sauce, gee yon sauce, celery, and Chinese mushrooms. Both were cooked in a frying pan and then served with rice.

Obviously, this was nothing like modern American chop suey. Multiple newspapers over the next ten years would indicate the main difference between the two cChop sSuey versions was that the American one had much more gravy and was only slightly thickened.

The two different versions didn’t appear just in recipes, but also in restaurants across the country, in places including Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Delaware, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Texas, and Arkansas, starting at least in 1905. 

Around 1908, recipes for American chop suey started to diverge even more from the Chinese version. The Chicago Daily News (IL), November 12, 1908, provided a recipe calling for ground beef, spaghetti and a can of tomatoes, very similar to what is considered the current version in American chop suey. So we see Illinois as one of the originators of this style, and in 1910, another Illinois newspaper published the first recipe with the use of macaroni rather than spaghetti. This is quite possibly the direct ancestor to the current versions of American chop suey. 

Other newspapers, in 1913 and 1914, in Nebraska, Indiana, New Jersey and California also published recipes which include ground beef, macaroni and tomatoes. In 1915, similar recipes appeared in New York, Minnesota, and Virginia. There were some more unusual recipes as well, such as meatless ones, or using ingredients such as pig’s heart, bananas, curry powder, and bologna sausage. 

As for the 1916 Manual for Army Cooks, it had two recipes for “chop suey” and neither is called American chop suey. One is “Hash, Chop Suey” and the other is “Stew, Chop Suey”, both recipes making enough for 60 men. The ingredients for the hash included fat bacon, onions, ground beef, turnips, corn, chili powder, soup stock and tomatoes. There is no macaroni, spaghetti or rice. The ingredients for the stew included unspecified meat, onions, celery, barbecue sauce, and beef stock, served with rice. These recipes don’t seem, by any stretch, the likely origin for what we now know as American chop suey. The recipe already existed for years, across the country, before the publication of this Army cookbook, and doesn’t resemble the American chop suey version that used spaghetti or macaroni.

In Massachusetts, a local newspaper in 1909 published a recipe which called for the use of both spaghetti and rice. Then, a 1914 newspaper published a more unusual recipe calling for chicken or veal, rather than ground beef, rice, and chopped English walnuts. It wouldn’t be until November 1916, that a Boston newspaper would finally print a recipe that included the use of ground beef, macaroni and tomatoes. However, for a number of years afterward, Boston newspapers still printed other American chop suey recipes which called for rice or spaghetti rather than macaroni. 

About sixty years or so ago, for unknown reasons, American chop suey became much more prevalent in New England than the rest of the country. So, people started assuming that it actually originated in New England. Although that wasn’t the case, it can still be a tasty comfort food, with a touch of nostalgia.