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I am not ashamed to admit that I used to be a disaster at baking. So when I thought that I should bake a chicken casserole memories of past accidents dissuaded me. I bravely consoled myself and looked for recipes just the same and told myself that I can do it, that I can bake a great chicken casserole yet. Most of the chicken casserole recipes I found online were posted by long time successful-in-the-kitchen people so they assumed that one would know times, quantities, flavours, mixes, et al. Then my mother in law, Nina Rajkhowa, came to my rescue and mailed me her quick and easy chicken casserole recipe, and I knew I’d found a winner. So here it is, a wonderfully painless chicken casserole recipe that takes the guessing and wondering out of the equation.
Total time: 1 hour (Prep time: 20 minutes, baking time: 40 minutes)

With a total time of one hour, this chicken casserole recipe is slightly more elaborate in terms of chopping, keeping aside and mixing when compared to our regular fare. But the casserole’s worth every stir, chop and flavour. Apart from being an extremely healthy mix of nutrients from the vegetables and protein from the chicken, this can be eaten as a complete meal. That means that you don’t have to bother with side dishes. Have some bread on the side if you will, but this is what we eat for lunch now and it’s good wholesome food that keeps us sharp till the end of the day.

Ingredients

1. Carrots – ½ cup
2. Yellow bell pepper – ½ cup
3. Garlic (chopped) – 1 tablespoon
4. Chicken boneless (cut into bite sized pieces) – 750gms
5. Celery – ½ cup
6. Mushrooms – 1 cup
7. Salt – ½ teaspoon
8. Pepper – 1 teaspoon
9. Mushroom Cream soup – 1 packet
10. Water – 250gms
11. Flour – 2 tablespoons
12. Butter – 1 teaspoon
13. Olive oil – 2 tablespoons
14. Skimmed milk – ½ cup

Method
Step 1: Preparing the chicken

1. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to a wide pan and let it heat.
2. Add the boneless chicken and drizzle the salt and pepper over it.
3. Let the chicken cook on a medium flame for 10 minutes.
4. Simmer the flame and cook for 5 more minutes.
5. Turn the gas off and keep aside.

Step 2: Preparing the vegetables

1. Chop the carrots, bell pepper, garlic, mushrooms, and celery. Chop the celery sticks only. You will use the leaves once the chicken casserole mix is ready.
2. So now you’ve chopped everything and kept it aside. If this takes you more than five minutes you might want to consider hiring someone with a sharp knife. For the veggies.

Step 3: Preparing the soup and roux (mixture of fat and flour used as a thickening agent)

1. Add 250ml water to a deep pan and add the soup packet powder into it. This soup mix will be the cheat you use to keep the chicken casserole recipe simple and healthy.
2. Stir till it comes to a boil, and then keep aside.
3. In the same pan add some olive oil, flour and butter and let the flour brown a bit. This is your roux.
4. Add the roux to the soup and mix well.

Step 4: Mixing it all up

1. Add all the ingredients to a deep baking dish. This means you will now add all the ‘keep asides’ – chicken, veggies, soup and roux.
2. Add the celery leaves on top of the casserole mix.
3. Now cover the casserole with some silver foil and poke some holes into it.

Step 5: Convection bake

1. Preheat the oven at 180 degrees.
2. Bung the casserole in and bake for 40 minutes (at 180 degrees).

DONE!

You can play around with flavours for the chicken casserole by changing the soup. I used Mushroom cream soup, you could use tomato, chicken or even noodle soup. In fact I just bought some flat egg noodles, which I will put into my next casserole, perhaps with sausages and some bacon bits. And a new baking chef is born.