Chicken & Rice Casserole

From my Mom, from her Mom… It’s super good when she makes it! I think I’m going to try it tomorrow…

Ingredients:

4 Chicken Breasts (Boneless and Skinless)
1 ½ – 2 Sticks Butter
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Can Campbells Cream of Mushroom
1 Can Campbells Cream of Chicken
1 Can Campbells Cream of Celery

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees

Take the chicken breasts and place them in a medium-hot frying pan (use a little olive oil first) – I would season the breasts with salt and pepper initially. Boneless and skinless breasts work best. Brown the breasts for about 5 minutes on each side, to lock in the juices of the chicken.

While you’re browning the breasts, get out a rectangular baking pan (I usually use a glass pan) and pre-heat the Oven to 350 degrees.
Use some uncooked Minute rice (or any type of long-grained white or wild rice) – I think we use 1 ½ – 2 cups of rice and spread it in the bottom of the baking pan
Then take some butter – 1 ½ sticks of butter and melt it in the microwave or on the stove
Mix the melted butter around with the rice.
Open up all three cans of soup, and spread in the pan with the rice and melted butter.
After the breasts are browned on each side, place them on top of the rice mixture, and pat them down a little so they have a little cushion of rice on each side. I think that makes them more tender and delicious. 🙂

Cover the pan with foil and pop them into the oven at 350 degrees for about 45-50 minutes. If the breasts don’t look too browned from the skillet, you can take off the foil for the last 15 minutes to get some more color into the dish.

Voila – a dish extraordinaire. This was passed down from my mom, who made this for many family dinners.

**

My Mom told me later that it makes it more tender if you put the oven to 250 degress and cook it for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. I did that and it was great!

** Do NOT put fresh broccoli in the dish to try and ‘steam’ it with the rest of the dinner. The juices from the veggies sit in with the rice and make it really gross! Bleah!