Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole
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Chicken and wild rice casserole is a meal that uses mostly shelf-stable ingredients. Assemble the ingredients for a few months’ worth of these casseroles if you have a hankering, and know that the bag will be ready to grab whenever you need it. You could even substitute canned chicken if you like to make it completely shelf-stable! My family gobbles this one up and everyone wants seconds so if we’re all here, I usually make double.
With chicken, rice, cream of mushroom soup, green beans, and almonds, this casserole is creamy and hearty comfort food at its best. I also have a slow cooker version of this dish, if that’s more your style.
Check out some of my other yummy casserole dishes like Mexican Cornbread Casserole, Chicken Tater Tot Casserole, Mexican Cornbread Casserole, Jiffy Corn Casserole, and Sloppy Joes Casserole.
Ingredients You’ll Need to Make Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole:
- Chicken
- Long grain and wild rice blend (Watch for a sale on this and then stock up!)
- Cream of mushroom soup (A recipe for my homemade version can be found here)
- Cut green beans
- Sliced almonds
- Ritz crackers
- Butter
Helpful Kitchen tools
How To Make Chicken And Wild Rice Casserole:
Boil the chicken in a pot, then cube or shred it.
Cook the rice according to package directions. Stir chicken, rice, soup, green beens and almonds together.
Spray a casserole dish with non-stick spray.
**This Casserole Dish is beautiful and gets great ratings! Give it a try if you’re looking to elevate your presentation!
Spoon mixture into a pie plate or casserole dish.
Crush Ritz crackers and add on the top of the casserole. Evenly coat with 3 tbsp. of butter.
Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, or until heated through and bubbly.
Now that you’ve done all the hard work, sit down and eat.
Storage
- Store chicken casserole leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days and reheat in the microwave.
- You can also store casserole leftovers in an airtight container in the freezer for up to three months. Simply thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat in the microwave.
Recipe Notes
- You can leave the almonds out if you want or you can substitute them for water chestnuts if you like. You could also substitute french fried onions for these, that would be good, too!
- While you easily adapt this casserole and use your favorite rice or rice blend (which might be white rice or brown rice), I recommend using wild rice for its distinct nutty flavor.
- Feel free to add more vegetables to this dish! Increase the mushroom flavor with sliced mushrooms or you could even add a can of sliced carrots. Another option is frozen vegetables, like a cup of peas and carrots.
- When it comes to the , feel free to substitute the cream of mushroom soup for either cream of celery soup or cream of chicken soup.
- You could also add a cup of shredded cheese (or a mixture of cheddar and ) on top of your chicken casserole if you prefer your casseroles to be both creamy and cheesy.
- Another option is to substitute the breasts for your favorite cut of chicken, whether that’s chopped or shredded .
Recipe FAQs
Can I make this casserole in advance?
Yes, you can prepare the chicken casserole up to 24 hours ahead of time. Simply cover with foil and refrigerate until it’s time to bake. Just remember that a refrigerated casserole might take longer to cook through. Another option is to bake the casserole, store the dish covered in the fridge, and then simply reheat quickly in the microwave or oven.
What do you serve with this casserole?
I recommend serving this casserole with some roasted vegetables or a fresh salad. Another option is to do a side of zucchini and squash.
You may also enjoy these other chicken and rice recipes:
Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli Rice Casserole
Slow Cooker Fiesta Chicken & Rice
Chicken Teriyaki with Brown Rice Fresh & Fast
Simply Delicious Chicken & Rice Soup
Ingredients
- 1 box long grain and wild rice mix I use Uncle Ben's, which is currently 6oz
- 1 cup fresh shredded chicken
- 1 can cut green beans mine is 15 ounces
- 1 can cream of mushroom soup 10-ounce, fat-free is fine
- 1 teaspoon onion powder optional
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds
- 1 cup Ritz crackers crushed
- 3 tbsp melted butter
Instructions
To make casserole
- Cook and cube or shred the chicken. Drain the beans. Cook the rice according to the package directions in a pot big enough to mix the casserole (no sense in dirtying up more dishes).1 cup fresh shredded chicken, 1 can cut green beans, 1 box long grain and wild rice mix
- Once the rice is cooked, stir in all other ingredients (except Ritz and butter) until well combined. Spoon into a pie plate or casserole dish.1 can cream of mushroom soup, 1 teaspoon onion powder, 1/2 cup sliced almonds
- Cover the top of the casserole with crushed Ritz crackers. Pour melted butter evenly over the Ritz.
- Bake at 350 for 20 to 30 minutes, or until heated through and bubbly. Serve warm.
Nutrition
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
~Wayne Dyer
I love your bag meal plan. Why haven’t I thought of that before? I plan to make a few for myself and a few for my daughter. My grandchildren who are teenagers both like to cook and the bag meals will be very convenient for them. This will eliminate the need to check through the pantry to see if I have all the ingredients on hand. There have been so many times When I wanted to make a recipe and find that I’m missing one ingredient. Then I normally don’t want to make a trip to the store so I just decide not to cook. I recently bought one of your cookbooks and I love it. Keep up the good work!
Christy, I have a little daughter-in-law, trying to learn to cook. I’ve told her about your website and how it shows how to mix up the ingredients. I gave her one of your cookbooks for her birthday. I think I will do some of the bag meals for her to help her along. Thanks for the idea!
I’m so happy to hear I am not the only one to have a huge aversion to water chestnuts. I was told I was just finicky. Thank you all of you. And thank you Christy for the wonderful ideals. I am now getting ready some meals for easy cooking. We usually only eat about half of the recipe but I throw the remaining half in a bag heat seal it and then it is an even easier meal from the freezer.
🙂
Part II-simple one pot, or microwavable meals. This really lends itself to our packing a whole meal in a bag which would be a nice, nutritious meal that is a step up from cans of chunky soup and bags of rice. We could get these ready anytime during the fall and not have so much to do in the lead up weeks to the Christmas delivery. Any ideas you or your readers could give me would be gratefully appreciated.
Do you have a meal-in-a-bag that is made in the microwave. My church takes Christmas to kids living in long term stay hotels each Christmas Eve which includes toys, microwavable mugs with hot chocolate paks, toiletries, cleaning supplies, and food. The food has to be simple
I’ll sure come up with some!!
Thank you so very much. I run the program all summer until school starts again. This summer we fed over 100 kids per day with breakfast and lunch and took it to them in the hotels. It was wonderful. We finished the last week by taking toiletries and laundry supplies so that they could go back to school clean. There are no shelters in my county…and I live in metro Atlanta. Last Christmas someone donated $1000 to be used for food and I know where that wallet is and plan to revisit it this Christmas. Your idea means that we could pack some easy to put together meals that are kid friendly, add a box of cereal, a can or 2 of chunky soup &/or pasta sauce with a bag or box of some starch, and provide several days worth of food to help them bridge the time until they go back to school. Your idea is heaven sent! Thank you.
I love this concept except for one thing…….the use of canned chicken! Have you ever read the label? How about cooking up extra chicken then chopping, shredding it ….and popping it in the freezer instead of using this mystery meat?
My canned chicken is chicken. No mystery there. I explain why I prefer shelf stable ingredients in the intro post to this series. 🙂 They are easy to adapt to using freezer ingredients though.
Aww, I really wish the little Ziplist button for “Save Recipe” was on here. I can’t download Ziplist on my work machine, and I’m always afraid I will forget to save it with my personal laptop when I get home. (And I guess I’m one of the few who doesn’t use Pinterest.) Anyway, love your recipes and your writing!
It’s there! Now it says “make recipe” instead of “save recipe”. I have no idea why they changed it. Maybe to see if we were awake 😉