Chicken Broccoli Casserole

The Date: 25 January 2012

The Occasion: Just wanted to make this old favorite of Husband's.

The Recipe: From my mother-in-law, just slightly tweaked.

How it Went:
We love this tasty, comfort food casserole. Yumm!

What You Need:
broccoli
cooked chicken
rice
flour
butter
milk
chicken broth
mayonnaise
lemon juice
cheddar cheese
bread crumbs

Your Turn:
You'll need 2 C of cooked chicken, so get this prepared ahead of time, if you can. If not, slice up a few chicken breasts and bake them in the oven for a half hour or so until they're cooked through. Then cut or shred. (FYI: That Pinterest trick of putting just-cooked, still-warm chicken breasts in your KitchenAid stand mixer and turning it on low totally DOES work to shred chicken!)

You'll also need 2-3 C cooked rice. So go ahead and prepare this too.

Now, cut up two medium sized broccoli crowns into pieces (about 2&1/2 - 3 C).

Boil about an inch of water in a saucepan. Add the broccoli and steam for about 10 minutes, until tender. Then arrange in the bottom of a greased casserole dish.

Now, your rice should be cooked, so add the chicken to the rice and mix well. Add some salt and pepper, and various herbs if you wish. Mine was kind of a homogeneous mixture because I used chicken that I'd cooked in the crock pot a few days ago so it was fall-apart-tender and mixed smoothly with the rice.

Arrange this chicken and rice mixture over top of the broccoli.

In the saucepan you just took the broccoli from (I'm all about creating as few dishes to wash as possible), melt 4 T of butter. Slowly add 6 T of flour, stirring constantly to keep it smooth. Remove from the heat and slowly add 1 C of milk and 1 C chicken broth, stirring constantly. Return to the heat and bring to a boil, then cook while stirring until it thickens. Remove from heat.

To this mixture, add 1/2 C mayonnaise and 1/2 tsp lemon juice, and stir well.

Pour this over the chicken and rice.

Sprinkle with 1/2 C shredded cheddar cheese.

Melt 1 T butter and stir in 4 T dry breadcrumbs. Sprinkle this over the top as well.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until top is bubbly.

Enjoy!