Easy Chicken Casserole

Years before becoming a mom, I used to nanny for the sweetest little boys. I loved the family dearly and I also loved the fact that the mom was a great cook. And every couple weeks, she would make Chicken Casserole and tell me to help myself to the leftovers. And it was so awesome!

While I was their nanny, I started experimenting with recipes for the first time, after looking through her cookbooks. I believe Chicken Casserole was the first recipe that I tried to make and as it turned out, I could totally pull off! Who knew? It has now become a family favorite and my go-to if I want to impress someone with my cooking abilities. The only competition in our family is Brian’s Fried Chicken (which is insanely good) and my meatloaf. 🙂

So, Chicken Casserole (or as Antwan calls it “White Chicken”) is pretty simple and hard to mess up. I would know, I’ve tried. 😉

Here are the basics for a family of 6.

-3-4 pounds Chicken breasts. (The original recipe called for 1.5-2 pounds but that doesn’t go far in my house so I always double and sometimes triple that.)

-24 ounces of sour cream (Even if you are making it for a smaller family, I would still use 24 ounces because sour cream is yummy and it makes it extra creamy.)

-1 family size can of cream of chicken soup

-2 tubes of ritz crackers (One if you are making it for smaller family)

– 2 sticks of butter (One stick if for smaller family, you get the idea!)

-poppy seeds

Boil the chicken breasts until they look like this.

Either cut into pieces or rip it apart. It kind of depends on how chunky you’d like it or your level of patience. I usually start with cutting it into squares and then get impatient and start ripping it apart. That seems to work for me. 🙂

Put it in your 9×13 dish.

Mix the sour cream and cream of chicken soup.  If you want to save a bowl, use the pot that you used for the chicken for this step. I’ve rationalized that I’m actually allowing extra chicken flavor to seap into the soup/sour cream mix. 😉

After mixing, spread it on top of the chicken.

This is the best part. Crumble a tube or two of ritz crackers by squeezing and smooshing or hand tubes to your kids to squeeze and smoosh.

Sometimes I use two and a half tubes because everyone likes the crackers and will ask for extra.  Pour the crumbled up crackers over the mixture.

Melt the butter and pour it over everything else.

Sprinkle a bunch of poppy seeds on. I’ve made it without poppy seeds when I ran out and it’s still good but it’s better with them because they really do make the casserole “pop.” (See what I did there?)

Bake for 30-45 minutes. The cream/soup mix will be bubbling on the sides when it’s done (or super close to being done) and the crackers will be brownish (or more brownish!).

Then enjoy!

Apparently. it’s so good it will make your eyes cross!