Here’s an old family favourite. My mom used to make this all the time when I was growing up and now it’s one that my daughter and I like a lot too. It’s quick and easy to make.
Ingredients:
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (this is our personal preference now but growing up Mom would make it with assorted chicken pieces)
1 can cream of chicken soup (you can use a different cream soup if you’d like but this is the one that produces the taste I like best – cream of celery or cream of mushroom also works well)
1 soup can of water or milk
2 cups uncooked instant rice (like Minute Rice)
*Note: you can also add some seasoning if you’d like. My mom would often sprinkle some poultry seasoning over this before baking. I could see other flavours that would be good as well – I like rosemary and basil with chicken, I can see lemon pepper being delicious in this, what else can you think of?
Instructions: Not much to it. Simply stir the rice and soup together – I usually hold back a little bit to pour over the chicken as well. If you find that it’s not mixing terribly easily, add in some of the water if you’d like but I usually wait and just pour the water (or milk) over the rice mixture once I have put it into a casserole dish. Put the chicken on top of the rice mixture in the casserole dish and bake this in a 325 degree F oven for about 40-45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the rice is tender. Your timing will vary a bit based on the thickness of the chicken pieces you are using. I like to cover the dish for the first half an hour to form a little steam to help the chicken and rice cook and then uncover it so that the chicken pieces brown up a bit. If the rice starts to dry out before the chicken is done, you can always add some water to the dish. I saw a similar dish on the Kraft website but they prepared this in a skillet. They browned the chicken on both sides until cooked through. Remove the chicken and add the soup and water/milk to the skillet. Bring to a boil and stir in the rice. Top with the chicken and cover the skillet. Cook over low heat for about 5 minutes. Stir before serving.
Variations:
You can substitute a 16 oz. jar of salsa for the soup and use 1 1/2 cups water or milk. Cook as directed but near the end of the cooking time, top the chicken with 1 cup of grated cheese.
Substitute 2 cups prepared spaghetti sauce for the soup and use 1 cup water or milk. Cook as directed but this time, just before serving, sprinkle the casserole with 2 T. grated Parmesan cheese.
Use 3/4 cup of a bottled stir-fry sauce (like teriyaki or honey garlic) for the soup along with 1 cup water or milk. Stir in about 3 cups of frozen stir fry vegetables with the rice. Cook as directed.
You can make the casserole as directed but add some vegetables to the dish – for example, a 10 oz. pkg. of frozen spinach, green beans, or peas, or 2 cups broccoli (fresh or frozen). If using green beans, you might want to top with 1/2 cup of those canned French fried onions just before serving. If using broccoli, you might want to add some cheese to the recipe – the variation I saw on the Kraft site called for 1/4 lb. of cut up Velveeta but I can’t stand that stuff so I would stir in some grated cheese instead.
We also used to make this recipe when camping. It’s a great one to use for a foil packet dinner! Prepare as instructed but instead of putting in a casserole dish, we would make a packet out of doubled thick aluminum foil to cook it in over the fire. Yum!
Makes 4 servings – very easy to simply increase the ingredients to make for a larger family
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