Winner winner (leftover chicken) dinner! Roast or grilled chicken meets cooked brown rice with a cheesy broth-based sauce to make a yummy, easy comfort food perfect for a weeknight supper. Connor said it reminded him of risotto, and I have to agree. This easy casserole dish is reminiscent of a risotto (if risotto was made with brown rice and cheddar), with a creamy, cheesy sauce, but instead relies on pre-cooked rice and chicken. This makes it a great way to use leftovers, and I’m all about that. I hate wasting food. So use what you have… throw in some thawed frozen peas, and/or some leftover veggies, and you have a delicious, warm, cozy meal in no time.
This is one of those COTF (Clean out the fridge) recipes. We just returned from a quick weekend trip to SoCal, and when I looked at the contents of our fridge, I realized we had amassed quite a collection of leftovers. Between the remnants of a chicken dinner and a few take-out leftovers, the fridge was overflowing with bits of this and that. When we order take-out from our favorite local Chinese restaurant (shout out to Frank & Yuen’s!), we typically order steamed brown rice, and they are so generous with portions that we end up with a ton of leftover rice. Now leftover brown rice isn’t a bad thing, especially when you can turn it into something completely different. So I was on the lookout for something with a totally different flavor profile (after a day or two of Chinese food leftovers I’m done with that for a while)… and ended up combining the rice with leftover baked chicken thigh meat and this creamy, cheesy sauce and ta-da! A new favorite!
My mom used to make a similar dish, but while she was a great “from scratch” cook, she also embraced products of the 1950’s “convenience food” era, meaning using canned Campbells cream of chicken, or mushroom, cheddar, or celery soups. Tuna casserole, scalloped potatoes, chicken and rice casserole … they were often based on the canned soups. Yeah, it made dinner super easy and quick to throw together, but in the “Slow Food” way of cooking, I try as much as possible to get away from highly processed foods. So those canned condensed cream soups? I just say no.
We enjoyed this dish so much, that I’m thinking when we’re baking or grilling chicken and cooking rice in the future, I’ll plan to double the amount we need for dinner, just to have leftovers to make this casserole. But if you don’t have leftover chicken, a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store would work great, and you can always cook up a pot of rice to use specifically for this. Other grains should work well for this too… maybe quinoa, barley, or even a small pasta like orzo. Ooh… gotta try that! We like the chewy, nuttiness of brown rice in this dish, but white rice should work too. And don’t worry if you don’t have the exact quantities listed in this recipe. It’s pretty forgiving.
I made this dish very cheesy… because we love cheese! But you can use less if you want to cut back on the fat a bit (but why???). We enjoy good sharp cheddar so I typically have that on hand, but you can certainly switch out the cheddar for other types of cheese too, or use a combination of your favorites cheeses, or whatever odds and ends of cheese you have lurking in the back of your fridge. Maybe make it more like an Italian risotto dish with short grain white rice and parmesan… OK, that one is next on the to-do list!
Basically, the point I’m trying to make here is that this recipe is a good template for using what you have to create a simple, flavorful meal. If you really pack in the veggies, it can be a one-dish meal, but we enjoy it with a fresh green salad with a simple oil and vinegar dressing. We like the contrast of flavors and textures that a salad adds to a meal like this. And the more veggies, the better, right?
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A great way to use up leftover roast or grilled chicken and cooked rice, this creamy, cheesy casserole has become one of our favorite dinner recipes. If you have a bit of leftover veggies like cooked broccoli or asparagus, try tossing in instead of or in addition to the peas.
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1 large shallot, minced
- 2 spring garlic bulbs or garlic cloves, minced
- 4 ounces mushrooms, sliced or roughly chopped (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme (or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 3 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese (divided)
- 3 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
- 2 cups cooked shredded chicken
- 1 cup peas (thawed if frozen)
- 1/2 cup of other cooked veggies like mushrooms, cauliflower, asparagus, broccoli, etc. (totally optional and dependent on what you have on hand)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2-quart baking dish with softened butter or olive oil.
- Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat.
- Add the shallot and saute until starting to soften. Add mushrooms, turn up the heat a notch, and allow to brown lightly. Add garlic and stir, cooking just for a minute or two until aromatic.
- Add the thyme, salt, pepper, and cayenne and stir for a minute or two. Add flour and cook, stirring, for a few minutes.
- Whisk in the chicken broth gradually and continue stirring over medium heat until the sauce thickens up.
- Add the lemon juice and 2 1/2 cups of the cheddar cheese, stirring constantly until the cheese is melted.
- Add the rice and chicken and peas and other vegetables to the sauce and stir gently until well combined.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup of cheese.
- Bake at 350 for about 20-30 minutes until bubbly and lightly browned on top. Allow to cool for a minute or two before serving.
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