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.
4 Ingredient Chicken & Rice Casserole
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 chicken breasts
- 1 cup long grain white rice uncooked
- 1 ½ cups water
- 1 package onion soup mix or use homemade
- 10 ounces cream of mushroom soup condensed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Spray 9×13 pan with cooking spray. 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
Cuisine American© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
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Baking this right now! The only thing I would suggest would be to put the ingredients in a better order, the water after the mushroom soup. Only just for the people that rush through directions. I might have added the water at the rice stage if I did not read through. Gentle suggestion.
Thank you for the tip Doreen! I am so glad you enjoyed this recipe.
Honestly I never leave reviews on recipes but this was so bad. Used exact recipe and after two hours in the oven, the rice was still completely uncooked and the chicken was dried out. Had to throw it away and order takeout.
followed the recipe to a T and an hour and 45 minutes later, my rice is still crunchy inside. when the timer went off after an hour and fifteen, I tried the rice, which was undercooked and seemed dry, so added another 1/2 cup of water and baked for another 30 minutes. Still undercooked, but at least edible, just not the fluffy rice texture I would expect.
I’m a lot more familiar with converted white rice – would that be okay to substitute if I make this again?
I have not tried this kind of rice but other readers have with great success. If you try it I would love to hear how it turns out!
Made this last night. Did not work out, but It smelled SO good.
I baked for 1hour 30 at 325. Rice was hard. Increased oven to 400. Cooked for 20 more minutes. Rice still hard.
I had no more time… I did salvage the chicken by rinsing everything off.
Great recipe! Was looking for a chicken recipe to make for company. Turned out good. I substituted brown basmati rice. I rinsed and then spread on chicken as directed. I did add more time to cooking after checking at one hour and fifteen minutes. Will make again!
I used everything in the recipe but I had cream of chicken and herbs soup and onion and mushroom soup powder. Of course I had to add season but I added it to the chicken and then sprinkled on top. I used sofrito, celery salt, cajun seasoning, adobo, garlic pepper, cayenne pepper, ginger, turmeric, smoked paprika, Italian seasoning, and parsley. I used parboiled long grain rice because it holds its texture and has never gotten mushy on me and I cooked it at 350 degrees for 55 minutes and broiled it for 5 minutes uncovered. Chicken tenderloins were what I had on hand. I also mixed all the ingredients together and poured it in a greased glass dish and topped it with the chicken. I wish I could post this picture cuz it’s bomb!!
I am so glad you enjoyed this recipe Blasian! If you want to share your picture you can tag us on Instagram at @spendpennies.
Great base recipe, so ty for posting.
This is easy to prep & cook, and is easily customizable for taste preferences.
I followed the base recipe, exactly, but added sautéed sliced shrooms (8oz), ~1/4c diced onion & a tsp Minced garlic. I also added some Italian herbs, thyme & a sprinkle of garlic powder.
It was tasty & I’ll def make again.
Absolutely delicious!!! Thank u for the recipe.
This was delicious! Added freshly sautéed mushrooms and cooked at 350 for 75mins. It was perfect! Great from leftovers too
Can I make this with cubed chicken breasts instead of whole at the same temperature/time? I’m feeding a large group and I don’t want to have to buy a ton of chicken breasts!
Thank you in advance!
Hi Kaiann, this recipe cooks until the rice is tender. So I haven’t tried it so I can’t say for sure, but cubing the chicken likely will not change the cook time but the chicken could overcook if using a lean chicken breast.
The chicken was very moist! Easy to make and satisfying. Thank you for this wonderful, easy to make recipe.
Does not cook at 325 it’s awful.
Yes it does. I had 4 *large* breasts & they were done, probably a bit sooner than I allowed (I baked for 1 5hrs bc they were big & I wanted to ensure they were cooked thru, but I bet I could’ve pulled it out at 1:15).
Therefore, either there’s something inherently wrong with your oven’s temp regulation or u screwed it up another way. Not person has mentioned they had a problem cooking the chicken, except u.
This is easy & very customizable for anyone’s tastes, simply by adding a few other ingredients & seasonings.
Can I bake this in the ninja?
I haven’t tried making this in a Ninja so I can’t say for sure Vee. If you try it I would love to hear how it turns out!
OMG!!! This is terrible!!! 2 days ago I stumbled across this recipe looking for a simple meal. I had the chicken and that was it. But I followed these steps subbing goya yellow rice for white, figured the season mix would be a good sub for the onion soup mix and added a little extra onion powder and garlic powder. Then I topped with mix of the water (I had that too) with condensed cream of chicken soup. Covered with foil and cooked for 1 hour 15, checked chicken, cooked an additional 10.
THIS WAS AMAZING!!! I couldn’t wait to try the actual recipe. So I did tonight. Chicken is kind of dry, rice is kind of crunchy and flavor profile is just non existent. So confused how this has so many rave reviews.
I gave 2 stars because I was able to get it down but the meal was unenjoyable and I am so thankful I did not ask my friend to come over.
Sorry but you didn’t review Spend with Pennies recipe. You reviewed your own recipe. The only thing you used that was the same was chicken.
i also found it dry, but this review will not get published because holly only wants 5 star reviews published
I’m sorry this didn’t work out for you. As you can see from the hundreds of reviews, We do post all reviews that are honest reviews of the recipe. :)
Most readers have enjoyed this recipe and we haven’t found the chicken to be dry. Did you cook it covered? Did you check the temperature and cook the chicken to 165°F? You could also substitute chicken thighs in place of breasts if you’d like. I hope that helps!
Kelly, first of all, your review makes absolutely ZERO sense. Secondly, you didn’t make the recipe as written – you made your own & then slammed Holly for it.
Your recipe sounds awful, so no wonder it turned out that way…
Kelly, you have 2 paragraphs and they contradict what you might be trying to say. Ultimately, if the 2nd time you made this per the recipe, the rice needed more time. No clue why your chicken was dry. Try actually following the recipe first.
I’ve made this many times, it’s super easy and delicious!! One of my go to weeknight meals to throw quickly prep and throw in the oven. Thank you so much for this recipe!!
The chicken was tender and rice was well cooked, though overall found this recipe very salty and the flavour was kind of one-note. Don’t think I’ll make it again.
Hi, this recipe sounds amazing. I have chicken thighs that need to be cooked, would they work good in this?
I haven’t tried it but chicken thighs have worked well for other readers with no changes. Let us know how it goes!
It says 3 cups water, but it only mentions using 1 1/2 cups on the chicken and rice casserole
Hi Jill, this recipe only calls for 1 1/2 cups water. Did you double it by chance? If you doubled it only the ingredients double, not the references in the instructions so you would have to manually do that.
Jill, oh no! I thought the recipe was written out of sequence, I thought the 1.5 cups of water was meant for the cream if mushroom soup, and the listed order was off, I even posted that. Now, I believe you are right and I am short water. Darn! I kind of knew I was wring and wondered where enough liquid would come from. Not too late, I just put it in. I wonder if this is why others complained about dry chicken?
Jill, I just checked the recipe and I am sticking with what I have done. Thanks for bringing it up because I also questioned it.
Great recipe!
Baffled by the 5-star reviews here. As others have mentioned, it took nearly two hours for the rice to fully cook despite following the recipe as written. Final result was visually unappealing (added parsley to salvage it) and overly salty.
I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you Anna. It doesn’t have a lot of color once finished (as you haven’t added anything with color in the recipe), for visual appeal you can add a little bit of parsley.
Rice should certainly cook within an hour in the oven (our oven baked rice never fails and takes less than an hour) so can’t say for sure why the rice doesn’t cook for a few of you. I haven’t had that problem and I’ve made this countless times and haven’t yet been able to recreate the issue.
Can this recipe be made with instant white rice?
I’m sure it would work but the ratios and cook time will vary Tina.
My mom made this recipe every Tuesday night! I love it and have been making it since I got married 35 years ago! It smells heavenly and pairs well w/ a crunchy side such as fried okra or crispy roasted potatoes. My mom used 2 envelopes of soup mix, 2 cups of boiling water, & one can of Rotel tomatoes w/ no cream of mushroom. The rice was spread over 1/2 cup melted butter. On my, is it fabulous!