What’s for dinner? Chicken and rice is often a common answer, but there are many ways to take these two simple ingredients and turn them into great family meals that are affordable, quick and easy to prepare and absolutely delicious. Fresh food and good preparation techniques are key to taking ordinary foods ingredients and making them taste like a famous chef prepared them for your family. Everyone is faced with budget challenges, but small amounts of great ingredients and spices can transform boring chicken and rice into a great meal without breaking the family grocery budget.
Five Chicken Recipes
These are five of our favorite chicken and rice recipes. All of them meet the criteria, easy and quick preparation, no hard to find ingredients, and family approved to be liked by children and adults both, so no fancy wines, or weird spices or odd ingredients that would cause your child to turn up their nose in disgust. But, different enough that they won’t say, “Oh, no, not chicken and rice….again!!”
Chicken Divan
Mexicali Chicken
Country French Herb Chicken Cassoulet
Cajun Chicken Crockpot
Jamaican Chicken and Rice
For all these recipes, it always goes without saying, that the freshest chicken and vegetables you can find, the better your food is going to taste. I don’t think people pay enough attention to this fact. If your chicken has set in the frig for three days, it won’t be as tasty as chicken you just purchased or removed from the freezer. Always wash well, and pat dry your chicken pieces, using good sanitation guidelines for working with chicken. I will add a link below on the importance of keeping work areas sanitized when working with chicken.
I am not going to give each complete recipes by my own quick and easy preparation tips for each dish. Everyone of these recipes can be found in numerous cookbooks or online in some form or other. It is just chicken and rice after all! But these five recipes are tried and true ones for our family and meet my criteria for family classics; affordable, easy to prepare, no weird ingredients, and quick and easy, dinner on the table in under an hour!
Chicken Divan
There are numerous versions of this classic french recipe. The way I prepare it is so simple, no recipe needed. I take boneless chicken breasts, saute them in about 2 T olive oil, mixed with 1 T. real butter. I season the chicken with a mix of ground black pepper, some seasoned salt and some thyme. I mix the herbs ahead, pat the seasoning into the chicken, saute till done on all sides. Remove the chicken to a holding platter and keep in warm 200 degree oven while making the sauce and rice. Before I started cooking the chicken, I began my rice. Again, use whatever type of rice your family likes. We like brown rice, but sometimes feel like white rice. I prefer jasmine rice if I’m using white rice, but plain old short grain white rice will work just fine. In the skillet where I browned the chicken breasts, I saute 2 minced garlic cloves, and then add about 1 c. of chicken broth to deglaze the pan. After scrapping the good, yummy bits of brownings from the skillet, I mix in either 1 can of cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup, or if no soup on hand, 1 c. of milk. I thicken the sauce mixture with a bit of cornstarch and cold water made into a roue’ if needed to thicken mixture. Sometimes if soup is used it own’t be necessary. After sauce is mixed, I stir in 1/2 c. Parmesan cheese and about 1/2 c. sour cream. (but I have left the sour cream out and it works just fine. 🙂
Assemble the dish by spooning rice into bottom of baking dish, lay cooked broccoli spears across the rice, Arrange chicken breasts down the middle of the dish over the broccoli, Spoon the sauce over all of the dish, but focus on the chicken areas, sprinkle with more Parmesan to make a nice browning crust. Place in oven and bake for about 30 minutes till internal temp of chicken is 165 degrees. Add a salad and some nice crusty french bread with fresh fruit for dessert. Awesome very gourmet looking chicken and rice dinner.
Mexicali chicken dishes
There are so many variations you can use to have a Mexican flavored chicken and rice dinner. An easy way is to do the same saute of chicken breasts just like above for the chicken divan, but cook the chicken through till done about 20 minutes until temp reaches 165 degrees internally. Remove chicken and let cool for a minute while making a great creamy tomato sauce. In the drippings I saute about 2 to 3 T. garlic cloves, minced, add 1/2 of finely diced onion and 1/2 green or red peppers.Saute till translucent, to vegies add one can of cream of chicken soup, and stir in one can of small dice tomatoes or salsa. Spice the sauce with cumin, chili powder, any type of mexican seasoning you use or have on hand. I’ve even used a package of taco seasoning mix. Take chicken breasts and either chop them in chunks or shred them and add to skillet sauce. Serve over fresh cooked rice and have some bean dip with tortilla chips on the side.
Country Herb Chicken
This is one of my husband’s favorite dishes and so incredibly easy. Again with your basic chicken boneless breast halves, Brown your chicken as in each of the above dishes. I seasons with thyme, parsely flakes, rosemary, tarragon, (all those great French spices) and some salt and ground black pepper. Make it nice and herby tasting. Brown the chicken in olive oil and butter base, cook until almost done. Remove from skillet. Stir in 6 to 8 mushrooms, sliced and 1/2 c. onion. Saute till done, Remove from skillet, stir in 3/4 c. white wine or chicken broth (whichever you prefer), add 1 can of cream of mushroom soup, sprinkle in a bit more of your french spice blend..to taste..and add the chicken back to skillet. Warm all till done and serve over a nice herb blend rice. There are several great instant ones..like Uncle Ben’s on the market. Serve with baby carrots, or fresh asparagus spears or perhaps new peas.
Cajun Chicken and Rice in crockpot.
I make this in the morning before I leave for the day and dinner is ready when I come back home. I saute my chicken breasts just till brown in skillet. Place chicken in crockpot. In skillet, I saute 1/2 celery, 1 med. onion and one large green or red pepper in large chunks or slices, and several cloves of garlic. After translucent, put in crockpot over the chicken. Add 1 can of diced tomatoes to crockpot and 1 can of cream of chicken soup. I spice the mixture with a good tasting cajun spice blend or make my own with crushed red pepper, cumin, chili powder, and salt. Turn on low and let is cook during the day. Once home, I cook fresh rice and dinner is ready! I’ve seen the recipe with the rice in the crockpot during the day, but our family doesn’t like mushy rice, so I wait and just make the rice fresh while everyone is changing and setting the table, etc. Again, add a nice salad and serve tortillas warmed as the bread. Often our family will use the mixture to make chicken rice burritos by rolling up the ingredients in their tortilla, adding some canned refried beans to the mixture, and some shredded cheese on top. All good options!!
Orange Chicken and Rice
I think this may be one of the simplest recipes I make, a great citrusy flavor. Take a whole chicken, cut up, about 3 pounds of parts of your choice. I sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and place chicken in a large baking dish, with the skin side up. Bake at 375 to 400 for about 35 minutes. While the chicken is baking, make the orange sauce by coming 1/3 c. frozen orange juice concentrate, 2 T. butter, and about 1/2 tsp ground ginger and for a tiny bit of heat. just a tiny pinch of dried red pepper..less than 1/8 tsp…or leave out if desired. Heat the sauce through and spoon over the chicken, baking about 15 to 20 minutes longer until tender. Serve over a nice long grain rice mixture or some pearly jasmine rice. Serve a favorite green vegetable like broccoli or asparagus on the side or perhaps some baby carrots splashed with a bit of extra orange sauce. Garnish with chopped chives and orange slices. This is a great diet dish, with no cream sauces and no frying.
Chicken and Rice does not have to be the same boring..chicken and mushroom soup with chicken pieces over blah white rice. Try one of these great easy fun recipes and jazz up dinner tonight.
Sanitation Tips for Using and Cooking with Chicken
http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/chickenturkeymore/a/chickensafety.htm
Reference:
- www.associatedcontent.com/article/183084/left_over_meal_ideas_for_chicken_pg2.html?ca
- www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/cat/1141/ (even more chicken and rice recipes!)
