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Short-Order Kitchen

Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

By Wes Ellis2 min read
A cheesy baked vegetable casserole in an oval white dish on a wooden serving board.
Recipe card
Servings
4
Prep
20 minutes
Cook
15 to 20 minutes
Method
Oven
Heat
350°F
Difficulty
Medium
Jump to ingredients & directions ↓

Part 2 of the thread Out of the casserole dish

THE SHORT VERSION4 points
  • No condensed soup: a mushroom-and-milk sauce plus Greek yogurt and light mayo.
  • Drain the broccoli very well, or the sauce thins out in the oven.
  • Everything's already cooked, so it's just 350°F for 15 to 20 minutes.
  • Ranch seasoning is the secret shortcut for flavor.
THE RECIPE · CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI CASSEROLE

Ingredients

Vegetables and chicken

Sauce

Topping

You'll need

  • 9x13 baking dish
  • Large skillet or pot
  • Large bowl and whisk

Directions

Sauce

  1. Heat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9x13 dish.
  2. Cook the broccoli until tender-crisp, then drain it very well.
  3. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook the onion and mushrooms 5 to 7 minutes, until soft and the mushrooms have given up their liquid.
  4. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and stir for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the milk and keep stirring until smooth and just starting to thicken. Take it off the heat.
  5. In a large bowl, whisk the yogurt, mayo, ranch seasoning, salt and pepper until smooth.

Assemble and bake

  1. Stir the mushroom sauce into the yogurt mixture, then fold in the broccoli and chicken.
  2. Spread it in the dish and scatter the cheddar over the top.
  3. Bake uncovered 15 to 20 minutes, until bubbling at the edges and the cheese has melted.
  4. Let it sit about 5 minutes before serving.
Notes Keeps covered in the fridge for 3 to 4 days and reheats fine in the microwave. Rotisserie chicken works for the cooked chicken. Roughly 400 calories and 40 g protein per serving, give or take.

wesellis.com/blog/chicken-and-broccoli-casserole/

The version most of us grew up on is broccoli, chicken, a can of cream-of-something and a sleeve of crackers. This one keeps the idea and the 9x13, but builds its own creamy sauce. It's a few more minutes of work, and you can actually taste the mushrooms.

A quick sauce, then the cold stuff

The skillet part is a basic flour-thickened sauce: soften the onion and mushrooms, stir in the flour, whisk in the milk. It only needs to start thickening. Then it comes off the heat and goes into the bowl with the yogurt and mayo. Keeping the yogurt out of the hot pan matters, since Greek yogurt that boils tends to split and go grainy.

Tip

The ranch packet is carrying a lot of the seasoning: garlic, onion, herbs, salt. Taste the sauce before you add more salt.

Dry broccoli, thick sauce

Steamed broccoli holds water in every floret. Drain it, shake it, give it a minute in the colander. Wet broccoli is the difference between a sauce that clings and one that pools in the corners of the dish. The same mushroom-milk sauce trick shows up in Creamy Mushroom Chicken, if you like where this is going.

Try this

Leftover broccoli and chicken also make a good Loaded Baked Potato topping, and the next casserole in the thread, Chicken Parmesan Casserole, uses the same cooked-chicken head start.

LINKED FROM2 notes

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