Chicken Rice Casserole makes for a crowd-pleasing dinner that comes together in under 5 minutes of prep time.
Made with only 4 ingredients, this dish has juicy chicken breasts and tender rice in a deliciously creamy sauce. This is a casserole that meal packs a lot of flavor in a filling one dish dinner and a meal that everyone will love!
Enjoy!
There is nothing like Chicken Rice Casserole for dinner. This dish is deliciously easy, creamy and totally satisfying and you’ll never believe it needs just 4 ingredients!
This is a special dish because the recipe comes from my BFF, Penny and she’s been making this for years. It’s her go-to, must have, favorite easy weeknight meal that I just had to try.
I have to admit, when I first made it I knew it would be tasty but… I had NO idea what I was in for and it’d definitely become a regular in our rotation!
This easy dish comes together in under 5 minutes, it’s one of the quickest dinner preps on my whole site (along with One Pot Pizza Tortellini Bake).
This dish is belly warming and comforting while being simple and easy to make, it’s like serving a nice warm hug from your Mom!
The chicken comes out incredibly tender and juicy, the rice is perfectly cooked in a rich and creamy sauce and the whole thing is loaded with flavor!
This easy Chicken Rice Casserole takes about an hour to bake (depending on your oven, you may need a few extra minutes but for me it’s about an hour), but that is one of the things that make it kind of the perfect dish.
We’ve made this just as written over and over but I’ve also added a little bit of onion to the bottom of the pan or a couple of handfuls of fresh mushrooms.
With very little minimal prep time, you can slide this casserole into the oven and relax, or maybe help with homework without feeling the usual dinner time rush!
5 minutes of work, and then perhaps a glass of wine or read your book for an hour? I feel like that’s a good idea for ALL weeknights!
I use homemade onion soup mix in this recipe, but you can use the kind in the envelope if you haven’t had a chance to mix up a batch yet. The flavor will be amazing either way!
My friend Penny also said she sometimes replaces the onion soup mix with a packet of gravy mix depending on what she has on hand!
If you are lucky enough to have leftovers, this makes for a delicious lunch the following day.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 cup long grain white rice uncooked
- 1 ½ cups water
- 1 ounce dry onion soup mix 1 packet or use homemade
- 10.5 ounces condensed cream of mushroom soup 1 can
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Spray a 9×13-inch casserole dish or glass baking pan with cooking spray (the rice doesn't cook well in a metal pan). Add chicken breasts and season with salt & pepper.
- Pour uncooked rice over chicken. Sprinkle with onion soup mix.
- Combine mushrooms soup and 1 ½ cups of water. Pour over chicken.
- Cover and bake 1 hour 15 minutes or until rice is tender.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Casserole, Main Course
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Made this tonight with chicken tenderloins. Only change I made was instead of water, I used chicken broth. It was just a tad bit salty, next time, I may only use 3/4 of the onion soup mix and include an extra can of soup (i.e. Celery or cream of chicken). My husband and I did like it a lot and plan to make again in the future with just a few tweaks. :)
Lisa
Enjoy your recipes
Can’t beat this recipe for ease! Had a nice flavor and my family gobbled it up. I used low sodium cream of chicken in place of mushroom. I did think it was a bit salty so I might skip salting the chicken next time, or maybe I just had a heavy hand.
At any rate, it was a success and I will make it again.
Please include portion size in nutrition info.
Hi Dianne, portion sizes and nutrition information will vary depending on the ingredients used. But each serving would be one chicken breast with about ¾-1 cup of cooked rice and sauce.
What the heck?! Made exac to recipe. Chicken breasts were overdone, the rice is mushy & it was WAY too salty! Put the chicken breasts in a colander & rinsed off. Threw the rice etc in the trash. Will use the breasts to shred for chicken nachos.
So sorry to hear that Sunny! This recipe is usually a success for our readers. Glad to hear you were still able to enjoy the chicken in tacos!
Turned out great!! I used chicken broth (1.5 C) instead of water as suggested in a previous comment. Mixed together in a bowl the white rice, broth, onion soup packet, can of mushroom soup, plus one tablespoon of Worchestershire Sauce (because everything is better with Worchestershire) and poured over the chicken breasts in my casserole dish. Covered tightly with foil and also put the glass casserole dish cover/lid over the foil to keep the moisture from escaping and baked in oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. (I checked at 1 hour, stirred the rice, recovered and baked for 15 additional minutes.) Super flavor and will definitely use this recipe again. Chicken and rice cooked perfectly. Thank you!
Definitely has potential.
Use a thermometer to cook to temp. Our half pound breasts were already overcooked at under 1 hour – 190 degs!!
45 minutes is probably about right. Start checking at 35 minutes with an instant read thermometer and adjust from there.
This would probably necessitate using minute rice.
Can you use brown rice? I only have brown basmati.
I have only tried this with white rice. If using brown rice, the cook time might be different.
My understanding is that if you soak your brown rice overnight you can then use it the same as white rice in a recipe. I haven’t tried this yet but will be soaking tonight and trying recipe tomorrow
I made this recipe tonight. It turned out great! Very easy!
Can you use minute rice
Hi Trevor, other readers have made it with minute rice and seem to have good results. I have not tried it with minute rice though, you may need to reduce the cooking time.
This dish was delicious. I used chicken thighs & it was really moist.
Will be doing this recipe again & again. My husband loved it
Denise – Did your thighs have the skin on and were they bone in or boneless? Thanks.
I have been making this recipe for years but always use a casserole with a heavy lid so no steam escapes. Perfect every time!
The rice came out mushy to me… Maybe the recipe calls for too much water, idk? I think cream of chicken would make it taste better but it’s super easy to make.
I don’t know what happened with this recipe tonight, but the rice never cooked. I followed the instructions exactly, and put in the oven first for 1 hour 15 minutes as suggested. When I pulled it out, the rice was raw. I then put it back for 25 plus increased the temp to 350 and when I took it out, the rice was still raw. I then removed the chicken, poured the rice mix into a bowl and microwaved it. It took an additional 20 minutes total in the microwave, adding another 1/2 cup water, to get it to the point of being edible.
Sorry to hear that Connie! This recipe is a popular one among readers. When covering the casserole you do want to make sure it is tightly covered to keep the moisture in to cook the rice. Hope that helps!
Did you cover it with aluminum foil to cook in the oven? Just Trying to come up with ideas as to why it didn’t turn out for you. Sorry to hear that. I’ve made it numerous times and my family loves it and it’s always turned out.
This happened to me also. The next time I used minute rice and it was perfect! I hope this helps, it’s a delicious dish!
Absolutely delicious comfort food! So easy and so inexpensive! I will be making this again and again!
I followed the recipe to a tee this evening but I added fresh chopped mushrooms to the mix…
I didn’t have a lid for my class casserole dish so I used foil and after 1 hr and 15min the rice was still quite under-cooked… Easy solution: I stirred it up well and re-covered then popped it back into the oven for 25 more minutes – PERFECT. Thanks Holly!
Love this recipe! I used cream of chicken instead. Only 1 cup water. Sauteed shrooms. Put 2 chicken breast in a 9×9. Mixed ALL the rest of the ingredients together in bowl, even the rice. Then poured mixture over chicken and cooked for the time it says and everything turned out perfect. Chicken was super moist. Also I had half minute rice and half arborio because that’s what I had in the house. Will make again!
My toddler and I loved this recipe and I will be adding it to my budget cookbook to cook again…being a single mom is hard enough, but meals like this make life easier. I added rosemary rice with a little additional water, 4 boneless skinless chicken thighs, 9” x 9” pan, 1T butter diced, and an 11 oz cream of mushroom and double covered it in foil to guarantee that the rice would cook thoroughly without allowing moisture to escape. I also added diced mushrooms that needed to be used up and some broccoli florets. I agree with other reviews to mix liquids and soup mix together first and then pour over chicken and rice. Yum!!!
I was wondering if this recipe could be made in a crock pot?
We have never tried this recipe in the slow cooker. However, some readers have tried it in the slow cooker with great success. I’d think 8 hours should work. Let us know if you try it Beth!
Horrible there isn’t enough liquid in this recipe for the amount of rice and the instructions are wrong. The rice needs to be mixed with the soup or it won’t cook. Also mix the soup mix in otherwise you will have dry spots and wet spots and clumps of onion soup. Actually just find another recipe because whoever wrote this doesn’t know how to cook.
I’m sorry this didn’t work for you John, I can’t say for sure why. This recipe does have hundreds of positive reviews, and the recipe works for me as written.
Well John… I think we all know what the D stands for! Maybe it’s user error! Seems like most people have no issues. I’m making this for dinner tonight. Groceries are running low & this is a great “staples” recipe. I’ll let you know my opinion in the morning. When you go to the trouble to share all your recipes then you can attack someone’s efforts! Until then… Play NICE!!
All you people saying your rice doesn’t cook…do you wash your rice before adding it? If not then you need to. Learn the basics of cooking before you bash someone. This recipe is AMAZING, so good every time. My fiancé and I love it!
Instead of layering the ingredients, mix the rice, soup, water and onion soup mix together, then pour over the chicken (or add chicken to the rice-soup mix and pour everything into baking pan). Cover tightly with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1hr. 30 min. Rice comes out perfectly cooked every time. The only other changes I make are 1) cream of chicken soup instead of cream of mushroom, and 2) instead of a cup and a half of water I dissolve one chicken bouillon cube in one cup of boiling water and use that; adds flavor and it’s not necessary to add salt to the chicken. You can also use chicken legs instead of breasts if you prefer dark meat.
Thanks for the suggestions David! Glad you enjoyed it.