This absolutely incredible, super easy and oh so delicious Cheesy Chicken, Broccoli + Rice Casserole is sure to knock your socks off! This fabulous dish is the perfect meal to simply stick in the oven and forget about it!
Hey, y'all! You may have noticed that I've been whipping up a ton of casseroles lately. Dishes like bad boys are the easiest things to whip up on busy nights...which is basically every weeknight in our household- especially now that we have two kids. Gone are the days where I would spend an hour slicing, dicing and preparing dinner. Some of our favorite throw together casseroles include French Onion Chicken Casserole, Low Carb Chicken Enchilada Casserole, and my now famous Good Ole Fashioned Chicken and Rice Casserole.
All of my recipes center around the same basic ideas: They have to be simple, delicious, and inexpensive. Sounds pretty cut and dry, right? Casseroles are the epitome of simple, delicious, and inexpensive. Another great thing about casseroles is they are super hearty. We typically end up with leftovers which makes my life so much easier.
This recipe begins with basic ingredients, chicken, frozen broccoli, milk, uncooked rice and a couple of cans of condensed soup. I don't know about you but these are items I always have on hand, which is awesome because my trips to the grocery store have been few and far between lately. This dish could totally be made without the rice but adding this ingredient makes the dish much more hearty.
My favorite thing about this recipe is the fact that there is zero pre-cooking. You don't have to brown anything, or use a butt ton of dishes so clean up is a breeze. Are you sold yet? No? Well, what if I told you that this dish is freaking AMAZING! Like so, so, so amazing. I can cram this stuff down my throat until my pants no longer fit.
I will admit that this stuff has to bake for a long time. But during the time, you could be doing homework, chores, baths, drowning your sorrows in wine, etc.
Can you spot the secret ingredient? Nah? Croutons! You can use any flavor of croutons you'd like. I bounce back and forth between garlic, cheesy and Italian- whatever I have on hand. If you don't have croutons, you could also crush about 2 sleeves of butter crackers.
Kitchen Essentials:
Ingredients:
1 cup uncooked rice 1 1/2 cups milk 2 cans condensed cheddar cheese soup 3 large chicken breasts 3/4 tsp salt 1/2 tsp garlic powder + 1/4 tsp garlic powder 1 12 oz bag frozen broccoli florets (or 3 cups of fresh broccoli) 2 1/2 cups of crushed croutons 6 tbsp butter, melted
Let's begin!
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray the bottom sides of a 13 X 9 baking dish with cooking spray, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together milk, cheddar soups, and 3/4 tsp salt until smooth. Set aside 1 cup of the mixture. Add uncooked rice into the remaining mixture and pour the mixture into a baking dish.
3. Cut chicken breasts into 1-inch pieces. Season with salt, pepper and 1/2 tsp garlic powder. Place the chunks of chicken on top of the rice mixture. Layer the broccoli florets on top of the chicken (you may want to cut these into smaller pieces). Cover with the reserved soup mixture.
4. Cover the casserole tightly with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 15 minutes.
5. After time has elapsed, remove the casserole from the oven. Next, combine crushed croutons, melted butter, and remaining garlic powder. Sprinkle evenly over the casserole. Continue baking for another 15 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and allow to rest for another 15 minutes- this will allow the rice to finish cooking and for the remaining ingredients to set properly.
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Updated: 3/16/2019