Emergency Chicken Rice Casserole From Scratch

NO CANNED SOUP!!!

How to make Chicken Rice Casserole – my Emergency way!

This is a dump-and-bake rice casserole that’s made from scratch. And anyone who knows anything about cooking will (rightfully!) raise their eyebrows when they see how this emergency version of Chicken Rice Casserole is made:

Dump UNCOOKED RICE in pan Sprinkle with flour and seasonings Mix with liquids (broth and milk) Top with RAW chicken and RAW broccoli Bake Stir in cheese, melt cheese, serve.

And this is what comes out: a CREAMY Chicken Rice Casserole with PERFECTLY COOKED rice with JUICY SEASONED pieces of chicken! 🙌🏻

What this Chicken Rice Casserole tastes like

It truly tastes like everybody’s favourite risotto – except you haven’t been slaving over a hot stove for 20 minutes. The rice is coated with a creamy cheesy sauce that’s made with milk and flavoured with chicken broth/stock plus stock powder. It’s nice and creamy rather than stodgy like many rice casseroles are, and comes out of the oven with a bubbly golden cheesy top. Most of the chicken has some browning on it, and the chicken stays juicy and isn’t overcooked. The broccoli is on the soft side, but most definitely not cooked into mushy oblivion. You could steam it separately and stir it through at the end, but I chose convenience for a relatively small compromise!

What you need

Here’s what you need to make this Emergency Chicken Rice Casserole:

The key ingredient here that makes a real difference to the tastiness of this recipe is stock powder, also known as bouillon powder. I use this in lieu of salt in this recipe because it’s salt with flavour. Use chicken or vegetable stock powder – my favourite is Vegeta which is a vegetable one, pictured below. Crumbled bouillon cube will work just great too – it’s the same thing, in cube form! We need this extra flavour boost to compensate for skipping the usual flavour base step of sautéing onion and garlic in butter and searing the chicken until golden brown like I do with my stovetop Chicken Rice Casserole! I’m a huge fan of Vegeta, it’s my secret ingredient for great soup broths, such as for from-scratch Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup. It’s also my trick to make a really great QUICK clear soup broth for Chicken Rice Soup and faster Chicken Noodle Soup, and a really terrific creamy sauce for Chicken Pot Pie.

NO CANNED SOUP!

I would’ve loved to call it the WORLD’s easiest – but I know for a fact it is not! The world’s easiest chicken rice casserole is made with just chicken, rice and canned soup that is dumped in a pan and baked, and you will never see that recipe on my site. I do not judge (you’re talking to she whose parents would crack an egg over rice, add a drizzle of soy and call that dinner!) but using canned soup to make shortcut casseroles just isn’t the way I cook. 😇 But I do truly believe this to be the easiest Chicken Rice Casserole that’s made from scratch because we by-pass the usual roux making process whereby melted butter is mixed with flour and used to thicken milk to make a creamy sauce for loads of things from Mac and Cheese, the Béchamel Sauce for Lasagna to Chicken Pot Pie. And I promise you – it is 100% delicious. Not “hmm, it’s pretty good”. It’s SERIOUSLY delicious. Creamy, cheesy, comforting, can’t-stop-eating-it-good!!! – Nagi x PS This is the rice version of the Ultra Lazy Chicken Broccoli PASTA Bake and the baked version of this 30 minute stovetop Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole, both of which are reader favourites!