Real Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole - Dump and Go Dinner
8
Servings
9
Ingredients
55
Comments
A whole food remake of our family's favorite casserole. Real food doesn't mean no comfort food.
8
Servings
9
Ingredients
55
Comments
Ingredients
- 5 cups cook Brown Rice, Long-Grain
- 2 cups cook and dice Chicken, Boneless Breasts
- 4 cups dice and cook Broccoli
- 10 ½ ounces Cream of Chicken Soup
- 10 ½ ounces Cream of Mushroom Soup
- 1 ½ cups Cheddar Cheese, shredded, #1
- ⅛ teaspoons Salt
- ⅛ teaspoons Black Pepper
- ½ cups Cheddar Cheese, shredded, #2
Containers
Cooking Instructions
Freeze For Later Cooking Day Directions
Easy Assembly/Dump and Go
These directions help you cook or prepare this meal PRIOR to being frozen for serving later (see Serving Day Directions when you are ready to prepare it to eat).
Why would I want to freeze this?
- Combine rice, cubed chicken and broccoli.
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Make From Frozen Serving Day Directions
Bake
These directions help you cook or reheat this meal AFTER it's been frozen for when you are ready to eat it.
- Thaw: In fridge
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Make It Now Cooking Directions
These directions are for cooking this recipe to serve immediately and NOT to freeze for later.
- Combine rice, cubed chicken and broccoli.
- Mix in cream soups, cheddar cheese #1 and salt and pepper.
- Divide among baking pans. Top with cheddar cheese #2.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes, until heated through and bubbly.
Nutrition Facts
- Servings Per Recipe
- 8 Servings
- Serving Size
- about 1.5 cups Amount Per Serving
- Calories
- 391
- Total Fat
- 17g
- Saturated Fat
- 7g
- Trans Fat
- 0g
- Cholesterol
- 62mg
- Sodium
- 732mg
- Total Carbohydrates
- 38g
- Fiber
- 2g
- Sugar
- 1g
- Protein
- 21g
- WW Freestyle
- 11
55 Comments
Join the discussionWe just ad this last night…. So good!
This looks good! I am going to have to try this! I love broccoli! Darlene
What a great updated recipe for an old favorite. This is a great recipe! Hope you are having a great week end and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Miz Helen
This looks absolutely wonderful and healthy. They would be perfect for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. Would you be willing to post this to my pregnancy and breastfeeding superfood blog carnival, superfood sundays?http://www.painfreepregnancy.o…Thanks!!
Sure! You are absolutely right. Bone broth is an amazing source of nutrition for everyone, but particularly mommas. I (Kim) am a huge fan of natural birth (I’ve had two, one of them a Hypno-baby!) and love to encourage other women in accomplishing it. I’m interested to check out the resources on your blog.
I’m planning to make this recipe tomorrow, so I can’t comment on it yet, BUT my husband made something similar about two days after we got home from the hospital with our baby. I was RAVENOUS all the time (post-labor+nursing) and it is still one of the best meals I can think of! A perfect post-partum meal for me (and still good for breastfeeding after a few months)!
do you think you have to cook it before freezing it? Or can you freeze it just before the baking it step and then cook it when you take it out of the freezer?
Yes, you should freeze it before you bake it. See freezing instructions for more details.
I will not be making my own soup for this, so how much is a “batch” if I am using canned soup???
One batch equals approximately one can. You may have to add a little milk if you use the condensed cans. I encourage you to try making your own soups though. It isn’t that difficult.
This is great! Thanks for sharing! Just one note, the ads on your site are really frustrating. They open up so big constantly and its hard to read anything.
I will agree that sometimes the ads can be intrusive. Unfortunately (and fortunately) they pay the bills and keep this website nice and FREE for everyone! 🙂 I hope you can understand.
Absolutely 🙂 Thanks again for sharing!
Approx how much rice does 2.5 c uncooked make? I make my brown rice in bulk.thx!
Typically rice will double in size. So one cup uncooked rice will equal about 2 cups cooked.
This is an awesome recipe! I love finding new things to make that are healthy for my family!
If useing instant rice can you add it raw and add extra liquid?
Instant rice isn’t really a whole food. Since the only “liquid” is the cream of soups, I don’t think it would really be enough to cook uncooked rice. You should really start with cooked rice for this recipe, whatever kind you choose.
I am trying it tonight. My son said, Mom remember you cooked broccoli Casserole a long time ago than you cut us off. LOL. I am making it as a surprise. Thanks, Lisa
I made this and shared my version here: http://oursomewhatlife.blogspo…I hope you will come check it out! Thanks for the recipe!
I made this last night, it was delicious! Never saw your site before but I’m thinking I might come back now 🙂 We ate half and gave half to a friend that just became a mommy for the first time. I used chicken broth instead of water and added some pepper and garlic powder and parsley when cooking the rice, it was great!
I made this for dinner earlier this week and have since been enjoying leftovers, very tasty! Surprisingly, I’ve never had the traditional version with white rice and “cream of” soups so I’m not sure how it compares, but I can only assume it’s better! I made half right away for my little family and froze the other half for a future meal. I found it to be a very frugal recipe as well as I used a high quality chicken I picked up for $1.25/lb to make the meat and stock for the recipe. I think I’m going to make another full recipe to take to a friend who just had her 2nd baby. Definitely a keeper! Thanks for sharing!
I am new to whole foods and am going to try this one tonight. I will make the cream soup from scratch…did you use whole wheat flour?
I think the recipe calls for white flour, but i have used whole wheat and the roux turns out just fine.
We cooked this recipe a couple of weeks ago, and it was an immediate hit! So delicious! Making our second batch tonight – can’t wait!
I have some leftover cooked wild rice and am trying this for tonite’s dinner. I’ve gone the homemade soup route but when time is short . . . which is almost always . . . I use Campbell’s Turkey Gravy. No MSG or preservatives. Only the Turkey gravy has the best ingredients. You can buy on sale at Thanksgiving & stock up!
Is there anything to substitute instead of cream of mushroom soup? more cream of chicken? I just don’t like mushrooms. let me know what you think! Thanks!
Yes you most certainly can just do more cream of chicken!
How do I find your freezing instructions? I would like to try this.
Hi Linda, the freezing directions for each recipe are at the bottom of the post. This recipe we suggest freezing before baking. Enjoy!
This is great, but like another person commented, I’m using canned concentrate soup. I looked up the recipe given for making soups. Um, not so easy – sorry. This momma doesn’t have time for that.
Yes, making your own condensed soup isn’t for everyone. I personally buy mine as well. It will be great either way! 🙂
Hi I was wondering when you mentioned a batch equate to one can or consedense soup. What are the oz on a batch. So if I were to use cans. Thanks Christine
Christine – you can sub any canned variety of Cream of Mushroom/Chicken soup. 10.5 ounce cans.
I was unable to make this on my big cooking day, because when I went to the store with my shopping list (and without my recipes), it told me to get 2 oz of broccoli and 96 oz of brown rice. I couldn’t even remember what recipes I had added, muchless what the quantity of the ingredients would be, so I just went with it. We eat plenty of brown rice, but it did seem a little odd to buy 4 bags worth. Those were the only glitches in my shopping list, but I was too busy to go back to the store for more broccoli. Looking forward to trying it this month…
Hi Courtni! I’m sorry for the trouble on that recipe. I actually just updated the broccoli measurements for the shopping list this weekend so if you look at it now, it should be a more accurate amount. Let us know how you enjoy it once you are able to try it. 🙂
This was so great! My kiddos (three and one) gobbled it up! Thank you!
Love to hear it!
Could you adapt this to a crock pot if using raw ingredients?
Jessica – I think you could certainly give this a try in the crock pot! Let us know how it turns out!
After you freeze and ready to bake, how do you thaw it and for how long?
Great question! Here is a post to help you on how to thaw your meals! http://onceamonthmeals.com/get…
What kind of cheeses would you add for this recipe? I see cheddar but there are so many varieties of cheddar… medium? sharp? extra sharp?
This is totally your personal preference, but I would choose sharp or extra sharp. I enjoy that tangy flavor coming through with the Broccoli!
Can I use frozen brown rice? If I use canned cream of mushroom soup, do I have to dilute it?
If you’re cooking to freeze the frozen brown rice will be fine. If you’re looking to eat that day I would thaw the rice, then use as directed. You will not need to dilute the canned soup, just use the amount called for in the recipe. Happy Cooking!
I’m new to freezer meals and trying to prepare for my impending birth of my first child in a few short weeks. I’m a little confused. You mention that the recipe can be combined and frozen, then baked when ready. Yet, the recipe states “cook and dice chicken.” Can you clarify for me if the rice and chicken can be added to the recipe uncooked, placed in the freezer, then baked at the time when ready to eat? Thanks.
Melissa, welcome to OAMM! To clarify, both the chicken and rice should be cooked prior to freezing. When you are ready to eat, you will thaw the dish and bake for about 30 minutes in the oven to reheat.
Do you thaw this before you bake it? Or can you place it in the oven frozen?
Hi Tara! Yes, you should thaw this recipe overnight in the fridge to make sure everything cooks thoroughly.
Wow, Cooking meals a whole month in advance! No way for me, for one, I’d have to literally buy too much stuff to do that. Or is this using disposable pans for meals? In which case, I’d have to wonder about the volume of trash in a landfill near you.
I certainly can, and do see cooking meals 3 or 4 days ahead, but that also suits my dishes, storage capacity, and energy, so I’m not throwing away disposable pans either.
This is an odd question considering I’ve made this recipe a handful of times already and it was very well received each time. The amount of cooked rice – 7 1/2 cups always catches my eye. It seems like so much for the 3 cups of cream soups. I’ve played around with amounts a little each time resulting in a “drier, but easy to cut into squares” version to a “creamy, spreads all over the plate” version.
This time I want to make it as intended – is it truly 7/12 cups of cooked rice?
Great recipe btw. I have to say once I learned how to make roux and my own “cream of…” soups, I have never gone back. So simple, so satisfying to know what’s in there and I think the end result is always way better.
Jamie – If your cooking 3-4 days ahead, you can just leave your food in the baking pan, or in this case, even a bowl will do and then transfer to a pan on the day of baking. “Make ahead” doesn’t have to mean a month, it can be a day or even simply hours. Based on that you can select the best storage method that aligns with your preferences and lets you sleep well at night.
Jean, thanks so much for your feedback – we really appreciate it and are thankful that you love this recipe! I passed your comment along to our MenuBuilder team who was in agreement with you about 7.5 cups being a bit much and will make the necessary updates to this recipe. Thank you again!
Do i need to cook the chicken before it bakes?
Yes, this recipe calls for cooked chicken.