Quick and Easy Leftover Makeover: Chicken and Stuffing Casserole!

We are continuing on with our "Budget Buster, Bulk Cooking - Chicken Edition" series and using up some of the leftover chicken we roasted in a previous video!  Today we are making a delicious chicken and stuffing casserole. 

This casserole is quick to make and only uses two cups of chopped, roasted chicken.  I used one thigh, from which I removed the skin and bone and half of a breast.  This made the two cups I needed.  I sauteed some celery, onion and carrot along with a generous 8 ounces of fresh Crimini mushrooms in some butter.  When they were  just a bit soft and the onion was just a bit translucent, I removed it from the heat and added the poultry seasoning, chicken and one can of cream of celery soup along with 1/2 cup of milk.  At this point you can choose to add whatever else you like.  Be it a bag of frozen mixed veggies, some frozen peas or anything you like.  It is up to you.  

*A note about "cream of" soup:* I seldom use canned creamed soups in my recipes.  However there are some that I do use them in.  I prefer to make my cream soup from scratch, however this recipe is intended to be a quick weeknight meal and getting this on the table after a busy day is more important to me than making cream soup from scratch.  You have to pick your battles.  I make no apologies for using this convenience ingredient.  I don't use them often so I am perfectly comfortable using it here or in my tuna casserole or any other number of recipes that can be put on the table quickly.  That being said, If I were going to be doing a month's worth of bulk cooking and were going to need, for instance, cream of mushroom or chicken soup for several recipes, I would indeed make my own and use it for those casseroles to be prepared for freezing.  If I were going to make three of these chicken and stuffing casseroles, along with a few sour cream enchilada casseroles as well as some tuna casseroles then I would make the soup from scratch.  You need to do what is best for you.  I have recipes on my channel for homemade cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, cream of broccoli and cream of celery soups.  You can easily find them by doing a quick search using the search option at the top of my channel page.

When the mixture is well blended it was poured into an 8x8 baking dish.  I topped mine with some leftover stuffing mix that we prepared when we made the chicken.  I made two boxes on purpose so I would have enough leftover for the casserole.  You can make a box of your favorite stuffing mix or if it is after a holiday, you can use your homemade stuffing as a topping for this.  I prefer to use a leftover stuffing because it is much easier to break up and "spread" on top than a hot stuffing.  You use what you have available and just plop it on in little spoon fulls on top of the chicken mixture and it will be fine.  

This was baked, uncovered for about 30 minutes until bubbly and a bit crispy on top.  Then we allowed it to cool for about 5 minutes before serving.  It was delicious!  This recipe is a pretty standard throwback to my youth and many people still enjoy this today in one form or another.  A Thanksgiving leftover meal would not be complete in our house without this dish.

So we now add one more recipe using our chicken to our budget buster bulk cooking series.  I plan on getting at least three or four more meals out of those two chickens.  I am up to the challenge.  You will be amazed at what you can do with just a little bit of meat!  

I hope you give this chicken and stuffing casserole a try and I hope you consider doing some bulk cooking of your own and I hope you love it!

Happy Eating!

You can get a printable copy of this recipe on my website here: http://bit.ly/2i5WzF7

You can see how I made this in my YouTube video:

Noreen's Kitchen

Budget Buster Bulk Cooking

Chicken & Stuffing Casserole

Ingredients

2 cups cubed, cooked chicken 2 tablespoons butter 1 cup onion, diced 1 cup celery, diced 1 cup carrot, diced 2 cups fresh mushrooms, sliced

1 can cream of celery soup ½ cup milk 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning 3 cups leftover stuffing or 1 box prepared stuffing mix.

Step by Step Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter in a skillet.

Sautee all vegetables until tender crisp and onions are just beginning to turn translucent.

Remove from heat and add chicken and poultry seasoning and stir well to combine.

Add cream of celery soup and milk and stir well, being sure to evenly incorporate into a cohesive mixture.

Pour the chicken and vegetable mixture into an 8x8 inch baking dish/pan.

Top with stuffing.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until bubbly and the stuffing is a bit crispy on top.

Remove from oven and allow to rest for five minutes before serving.

NOTE:  You can use any kind of cream soup that you like.  Cream of mushroom, onion, celery, chicken, chicken and mushroom or chicken an herb would be good choices.