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No one loves a good casserole recipe more than a mom. From her perspective, it’s a complete meal, loaded with veggies, and baked all in one dish. It’s easy for serving and cleanup and can be made in advance. And as an added bonus, the recipe can usually be doubled and half of it frozen for another meal!
Besides this cheesy chicken broccoli casserole, my family’s favorite casserole is my sweet potato shepherd’s pie. Both are excellent and easy to make on a busy day.
Easy Cheesy Chicken Broccoli Casserole
It’s easiest to make this recipe with pre-cooked chicken. I frequently cook extra chicken on weekends or when I’m making some for another recipe (like chicken enchiladas verdes) so that I have some ready to go when I’m short on time. However, you can absolutely start with raw chicken and bake it in the oven or dice it and then saute it in a skillet.
I also like to use frozen veggies, again to save on time and prep work. But go ahead and use fresh ones if you’d like. I typically use broccoli and cauliflower because they’re easy to find and my family likes them, but you could also use frozen carrots.
Delegate It to the Kids!
I love to let my kids help cook whenever possible. Letting the kids help cook is one of the ways I help them learn to love a wide variety of foods. It’s also a really great way to help avoid developing picky eaters.
Years ago I enrolled them in an online cooking school. They learned the basics of recipe reading, measuring, and knife safety and loved it. We also have a crinkle cutter with a wooden handle. It’s a great tool for letting little hands help with chopping and grating.
Now that they are older I’m reaping the rewards of the earlier challenges of teaching the kids to cook. My kids are actually a tremendous help many nights and can even cook several meals on their own. The messes and spills we cleaned up by letting them “help” when they were younger have paid dividends.
Chicken Broccoli Casserole Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 chicken breasts (cooked)
- 4 TBSP butter (cubed)
- 1 bag frozen broccoli (or 1 head fresh)
- 1 bag frozen cauliflower (or 1 head fresh)
- 1 medium onion (diced)
- 2 cups cheddar cheese (shredded, optional)
- ⅔ cup sour cream (optional)
- ¼ cup water
- 1 tsp basil
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- ¼ cup Parmesan cheese (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- If not using pre-cooked chicken, bake chicken until cooked or dice and sauté in a skillet.
- Place the butter in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.
- Add the broccoli, cauliflower, and diced onion.
- Cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until heated and mostly cooked.
- While the vegetables are heating, chop the chicken into bite sized pieces and grate the cheese if necessary.
- Remove the vegetables from oven.
- Add the chopped chicken, cheddar cheese, sour cream, spices, and ¼ cup water to the vegetables and mix well.
- Top with Parmesan if desired and return the baking dish to the oven.
- Continue cooking until the cheese is melted and everything is heated through.
Notes
Nutrition
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So good! Just made this for supper and my 5 boys (ages 10 and under) all loved it!
I made this earlier in the week and I and my husband both loved it. I too, had water in the bottom with crispy veggies so I think I’ll just leave the water out. We don’t mind crunchy veggies. I like that it has the cauliflower also. This will be a perfect “go-to” recipe once I start precooking chickens over the weekend! Thank you!
I made this this eve. My whole family really liked it!! My family was starving and wanted to eat…..the veggies were still a little crisp and there was quite a bit of liquid in the bottom of the dish. Next time I will allow more cooking time. It seemed to take much longer than the recipe indicated. Might even microwave the veggies a little first. All in all it was a hit.
This is so easy and delicious! Thanks!
Does this Chicken Broccoli Casserole fair well if you freeze it and try to reheat?
Thanks & Blessings,
Shan
The How to Guru
This recipe is delicious!
A couple of suggestions to help make the instructions easier to follow:
– Specify what size casserole dish you’ll need for this, as you’ll need a larger one (!).
– It wasn’t clear what you do with the 4 TBSP of butter by how the recipe is written, and so I assumed it was to use with the onions (see the following).
– Sauté the onions before you add the frozen vegetables, to ensure the onions get cooked enough and are soft.
– Include amount of basic and garlic (as well as the type of garlic–fresh chopped? powder?) that you typically use would be great for us new to cooking.
Thank you for all of your great recipes and articles. 🙂
Just made this and the reaction from the whole family was ‘Wow’! Only thing I changed was I fried onion and garlic in butter then added it to casserole with the sour cream. It’s gone onto our list of regular dinners, thanks.
I love all of your recipes. The only thing that would make them better is if you can list a “ballpark” time it takes to create these meals. I’ve gotten over my head a few times with some of your recipes that seem like they won’t take much time, but end up consuming my night. Thanks!
I have the exact same problem, and not just with wellness mama… this will probably take me 2 hours to make ;/
sounds good i’m going to try it
Why dont yu have nutrition list on recipes or am I missing them