Say goodbye to the snide comments about your typical casserole recipes. This recipe for Teriyaki Chicken Casserole includes all of the flavors of your favorite Chinese restaurant in a casserole that is easy to create in your kitchen. Even teens who prefer pizza will enjoy this healthy and delicious recipe.
Who doesn’t love getting Chinese takeout? The sweet and savory tastes of the sauces, the textures of the rice and meat, the crunchy nutrition of the steamed vegetables makes this easy dinner option a popular choice. However, when one is on a tight budget, things like dining out or grabbing a to-go restaurant meal are often the first things that are cut. But that doesn’t mean that you have to say goodbye to the taste of things like Teriyaki Chicken. This recipe for Teriyaki Chicken Casserole gives you all the flavor of your favorite take out meal with a budget-friendly, easy to make at home recipe.
Teriyaki Chicken Casserole Recipe
Our recipe uses the old stand by of boneless skinless chicken breasts. Often, when these popular cuts of chicken are baked, they can tend to dry out and become like sawdust. Our recipe calls for a special trick that helps avoid drying out the chicken while still ensuring that they get thoroughly cooked. We smother the chicken in a liberal layer of homemade, tangy-sweet, teriyaki sauce to help the meat stay moist and tender while it is being baked in the oven.
Equipment
- 9-Inch Square Baking Pan
- Medium-Sized Pot
- Wire whisk
- Jelly Jar
- Small bowl
- Spatula
Ingredients
- 3 cups Rice
- 3 pcs Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
- 1 pack Frozen Stir Fry Veggies
- 3/4 cup Soy Sauce
- 1/2 cup Water
- 1/3 cup Brown Sugar
- 1 tbsp Honey
- 3/4 teaspoon Ginger
- 1 teaspoon Oil
- 1/2 teaspoon Minced Garlic
- 3 tbsp Flour
- 1/4 cup Water
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spray a nine-inch square baking pan with cooking spray.
- First, you will prepare the teriyaki sauce. In a medium-sized pot, combine the soy sauce, water, and brown sugar, honey ginger, oil, and garlic. Use a whisk to combine them and put them on the stove over medium-high heat.
- As the mixture is heating up, add the water and the flour to a small jelly jar with a lid. Put the lid on the jar and shake the jar to combine the two ingredients. If you don’t have a jelly jar, you can simply whisk the flour into the water in a small bowl.
- When the pot comes to a boil, let it boil for about 60 seconds. Take a spoonful of the hot mixture and stir it into the flour mixture to raise the temperature of the flour mixture a bit.
- Then, pour the flour and water mixture into the pot of seasonings, whisking as you do so. Boil the mixture until it begins to thicken, whisking and stirring to keep it from forming lumps. Remove the pot from the heat and set it aside.
- Put the chicken breasts in the prepared pan and top them with about a cup of the sauce mixture.
- Bake the chicken for about half an hour, and when you remove it from the oven, use two forks to shred it into small pieces.
- While the chicken is baking, prepare the frozen stir fry vegetables according to package instructions. Also, while the chicken is baking, you can prepare the rice according to the package instructions.
- Add the rice and vegetables to the pan that contains the shredded chicken and stir to combine them. Top the mixture with several tablespoons of the teriyaki sauce, stirring the sauce into the mixture.
- Return the pan to the oven and bake it for about 15 more minutes. Drizzle the top of the casserole with more sauce and serve the casserole immediately in bowls.
Notes
Casseroles often get a bad rap on the family menu. Teens may make jokes about mystery meat and hiding leftovers in mom’s weekly casserole. This recipe, however, will reform everyone’s opinions about what constitutes a casserole. It is loaded with favorite ingredients–sugar snap peas, chicken, onions, broccoli, and water chestnuts–mixed with rice and a savory sauce.
Additionally, this recipe is very healthy. While the sauce does feature a bit of brown sugar and honey, the casserole itself has low fat, high protein chicken and plenty of vegetables. If you want to increase the veggie content of this recipe, you can cook an additional bag of mixed vegetables. You may want to reduce the rice by half as well to cut down on the carb content. If you want to make the recipe a bit higher in protein and more filling, you may want to use fried rice instead of plain rice.
This recipe does take a bit of time to create, but most of the time is in the baking. The sauce only needs a little stovetop stirring, and the chicken mostly bakes for half an hour, during which time you can be cooking the rice and microwaving the frozen vegetables. Both of those tasks take very little attention from the cook. You may be able to start this recipe and help the kids with their homework or work on a few loads of laundry while it is cooking.
This recipe is still healthy while relying on the convenience of things like frozen vegetables. Buy a package of “steamable” stir fry veggies and you can simply pop the whole package into the microwave to cook while you attend to other parts of the recipe. It is also a great recipe to help you use up any leftover rice in the refrigerator.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
April Freeman enjoys creating all kinds of recipes for her friends and family from her country kitchen in Middle Tennessee. She and her family raise beef cattle, chickens, and all sorts of fruits and veggies on their farm, and she specializes in featuring farm-fresh foods in the recipes that she creates and serves. April says that her slogan is “Are you hungry?” and she feels that one way of showing love and connecting with others is to serve delicious favorite foods to others. Her favorite thing to cook is pies of all kinds.
