You can’t really ever have too many comforting dinner recipes on hand, so pay attention and get ready to add this hearty one to your recipe arsenal. Little Hen casserole, also known as Chicken Little casserole, is a heavy hitter of a meal that’s got the “meat and potatoes” elements of your meal totally covered, which means less work for you regarding meal prep – yay! Those elements here are chicken and mashed potatoes, which all gets topped off with a spruced up gravy that tastes amazing and makes the whole dish perfectly creamy.
This is a basically a four step recipe, so anyone can do it and it’s 100% foolproof, especially if you start with all your ingredients already prepped and ready to go. Potatoes should be mashed and seasoned, chicken breasts should be cooked and shredded, cheese should be grated. This makes the assembly of this recipe go so quickly you’ll be sitting on the couch in no time, wondering if you actually made dinner at all. (Reminder: you did!)
So once each ingredient is sitting on the counter, patiently waiting its turn to go into the baking dish, you can throw together the gravy that’s going to coat everything. We used two cans of condensed cream of chicken soup (although you could use one), then a cup of whole milk, along with garlic powder, onion powder, dried rosemary thyme, salt and pepper…what you get is a deliciously seasoned, thick and creamy sauce that goes perfectly with the chicken and mashed potatoes. Pro tip: you could make this sauce anytime you want to add a little something special to any other weeknight dinner – chicken potatoes, veggies, pork…this stuff is so, so good. Once it bakes up, you’ve got a meal to write home about. Grab some green veggies and dinner is served!
Little Hen Casserole
Ingredients
- 6 cups mashed potatoes, homemade or store-bought
- 4 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
- 1-2 (10.5 oz.) cans condensed cream of chicken soup, depending on how creamy you want dish
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 350º F and lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with non-stick spray.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together 1-2 cans of soup (depending on how creamy/sauce you want this to be), milk, garlic powder, onion powder, rosemary and thyme, then season with salt and pepper.
- Spread mashed potatoes into an even layer in greased baking dish, then top with shredded chicken.
- Pour “gravy” sauce over chicken, then top with cheddar cheese, if using.
- Place baking dish in oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until hot and bubbly.
- Remove from oven and let cool 5-10 minutes before serving.
Recipe adapted from A Dash Of Sanity