Easy Chicken and Rice Casserole
Creamy, meaty, flavorful and SO EASY, YOU CAN’T MESS IT UP! Have you been looking for something that is forgiving with ingredients, you can make substitutions without much fear and whips up in minutes? This is the Easy Chicken and Rice Casserole for YOU!
Servings: 24 servings
Calories: 117kcal
Cost: $10
Equipment
- 9x13 baking dish
- large bowl
- Small bowl
- Several spatulas
- measuring spoons and cups
- oven
- stove top
- Frying Pan
Ingredients
- Cooking spray substitute butter or other grease for the pan
- 2 tbs vegetable oil
- 4 Cups Chopped Chicken breast or thigh is fine
- 1 tsp Dried Thyme
- 4 Cups Precooked Rice I like to use Uncle Ben’s Ready Serve Brown and Wild Rice
- 2 Cans 10.75 ounces of Cream of Celery Soup
- 8 ounces sour cream
- 1 Cup Milk
- 1 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 tsp Onion Powder
- 1 tsp Paprika
- Salt and Pepper to taste.
- 1 Cup Crushed Potato Chips You can substitute anything crunchy like crackers, pretzels, potato stix, etc..
- 2 tbs Butter melted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray.
- In a large skillet, heat 2 tbs vegetable oil until the pan is very hot. Add the chicken pieces a little bit at the time and make sure you hear a good sizzle. Do this until all of the chicken is added. Cook until the chicken is just past pink. Sprinkle with the dried thyme.
- Once chicken is done, remove from the heat and set aside.
- In a large bowl, Mix the cooked chicken, rice, cream of celery soup, sour cream, milk, garlic, onion and paprika. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Once everything is well mixed, spread it out into a 9x13 prepared baking dish and set aside.
- Pour the butter over the potato chip crumbs and mix well. Sprinkle this on top of the casserole to make a topping.
- Bake for 35-45 minutes until the top is golden brown and the juices are bubbly.
Video
Notes
- Make sure not to overcook the chicken in the first step. Only cook it until the pink has JUST left the chicken.
- Be sure to season the chicken so that seasoning flavors go fully through your casserole.
- Make sure that your rice is fully cooked and seasoned. If you are trying to use rice that doesn’t have any salt or pepper on it, the entire casserole will taste bland.
- Be careful with the salt. The canned soups are salty, the Uncle Bens rice has some salt in it and may already be perfectly seasoned. If you are cooking your own rice from scratch, it wont’ have any. You will need to taste as you go to make sure of the salt levels.
- If you are adding vegetables to the casserole, you’ll need to precook those to make sure that all of the water is out of them or you’ll end up with soupy casserole. A more firm vegetable usually does best like broccoli, asparagus, brussel sprouts or carrots. Peas work good too.
- For Sour Cream, you can use plain yogurt or cream cheese that has been thinned down with milk.
- Substitutions for Milk; You can substitute evaporated milk 1/2 cup mixed with 1/2 cup water, reconstituted dried milk, milk replacement of your choice (I think even coconut milk would work).
- Onion Powder: 1 whole chopped onion
- Garlic Powder: 1 tbs minced garlic
- Paprika: if you don’t have it, just leave it off.
- Potato Chips: crackers, pretzels, potato stix, fried onions, crushed croutons - think dry and crunchy.
- Butter: butter substitute. If you have none of these, bacon grease will work as will vegetable oil, lard, olive oil, etc - you will want some kind of fat.
Nutrition
Calories: 117kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 15mg | Sodium: 44mg | Potassium: 115mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 158IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 27mg | Iron: 1mg