Tag: easy recipe

Chicken and Arborio Rice Skillet

We know a couple things about me and my cooking – I like rice, I like chicken and I love a one pot / skillet meal! I love the simplicity of it (not to mention the easy clean up!).

This recipe uses just a few ingredients: chicken, arborio rice, onion, garlic and a few seasonings. I intended to also add in mushrooms, but – sadly – my mushrooms had started to go bad.

The first thing you’ll want to do is to spray your chicken breasts with avocado oil (you could use canola oil or other oil, if you like) and sprinkle on some salt, pepper and umami seasoning. These seasonings are in addition to what is mentioned in the recipe, below. You’ll just want to season to your liking.

In a hot pan (I used a large non-stick skillet, but a large cast iron pan would work too), add in your seasoned chicken breasts. Allow them to cook for 3-5 minutes, or until you get a good sear on the chicken – then flip the chicken breasts and sear the other side. Then, remove from the pan.

There may be some residual oil in the pan, but if not, spray in a little avocado oil and add in your onions. Cook for a few minutes, until the onion starts to soften.

Then add in your garlic and cook for an additional 3 minutes.

To the onion and garlic, add in your arborio rice. Certainly, you can use another rice if you like – but, the arborio rice is so starchy and it makes the dish very creamy (without any cream added). If I were to use another rice, I would probably add a bit of cream, personally. Stir the rice around and let it toast a bit with the onions and garlic.

Then add in the chicken stock, salt, pepper and umami seasoning. You’ll want to bring it up to a boil, then reduce the heat.

Finally, add the chicken back into the skillet – cover and cook for approximately 35 minutes (or until your chicken is done – 165 degrees – and the rice has absorbed most of the stock).

This skillet dish is super creamy. It seems so decadent, even though you don’t add any cream to it!

Chicken and Arborio Rice Skillet

We ate this with some delicious brussel sprouts

2-4 Chicken breasts
1 1/2 cups Arborio Rice
4 cups chicken stock
1 onion, rough chopped
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp salt (+ an extra dash for the chicken)
1 tsp pepper (+ an extra dash for the chicken)
1/2 tbsp Umami seasoning (+ and extra dash for the chicken)
Avocado oil spray

  • Chop onions, set aside
  • Spray chicken breasts with avocado oil
  • Sprinkle the chicken breasts with salt, pepper and umami seasoning
  • In a hot skillet, sear the chicken on both sides (about 3-5 minutes each side) and then remove from the pan
  • Add in onions and let them start to soften
  • Add in the garlic and let it cook
  • Add in the rice and stir to toast the rice a bit
  • Add in the chicken stock, salt, pepper and umami seasoning and mix through – let come to boil
  • Add the chicken breasts back into the pan
  • Cover and cook for 35 minutes (until your chicken is 165 degrees and rice has absorbed most of the liquid)
by Michelle

Easy Chicken and Rice Casserole

I was looking for something easy to make tonight – and I knew I wanted to use chicken. So, I decided to make an easy chicken and rice casserole – that I could just throw together, put in the oven and forget about it (for the most part). Is it just me or should a casserole be comfort food? Maybe it is because I love casseroles, but I tend to associate them with comfort food. After a night of not sleeping well, and feeling poorly as a result of that, comfort food sounded just like what I needed.

Comfort food, at least in my house, tends to be creamy! And, what could make a casserole more creamy than Campbell’s ‘cream of whatever’ soup? For this recipe, I decided to use a cream of chicken and a cream of celery. To that, I added some celery, carrots and onion – to go with the rice and chicken.

As far as seasonings, I used salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika and umami seasoning.

For the chicken, I used my instant pot to cook it (in 1 cup of stock, which I also added to the casserole). I cooked 2 very large chicken breasts, from frozen in 20 minutes – and used my hand mixer to shred it. I’ve blogged about this before – and, I still stand by the fact that I’ll never do shredded chicken any other way!

I chose to make the casserole in my large dutch oven. Once all the vegetables were chopped and the chicken was shredded, I just dumped everything into the dutch oven.

And stirred… Yes, it is really that simple! Dump the ingredients and stir!

I then put the lid on, and put the dutch oven in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, I removed it from the oven, uncovered, topped with bread crumbs. You don’t want to add the bread crumbs until some of the liquid from the casserole have been absorbed – otherwise, it will just get mushy, instead of adding a little crispiness to the top of the casserole.

And back into the oven it went, uncovered – for another 20 minutes.

There are vegetables in the casserole, but if you want – you can serve alongside another vegetable or side. I had some field peas with mine.

Easy Chicken and Rice Casserole

2 – 3 large chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (along with stock from cooking the chicken breasts)
2 1/2 cups rice
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of celery (or mushroom) soup
2 1/2 ‘cans’ (using soup can to measure) chicken stock
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, diced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp pepper
3/4 tsp paprika
2 tsp Umami seasoning
2/3 cup panko bread crumbs

  • In a large dutch oven, mix all ingredients (yes, it is really that easy – dump it all in!)
  • Cover dutch oven and cook for 45 minutes, at 400 degrees
  • Uncover – top with Panko bread crumbs – and bake for another 20 minutes, uncovered
by Michelle

Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo

It is no secret that the girls and I love pasta! We, generally, eat it at least once a week and we like to try different combinations of flavors. But, one that we always love is alfredo sauce – with shrimp or chicken or alone, we love alfredo sauce!

This time it was chicken alfredo. You, truly, can’t get much simpler than alfredo sauce. Unless you’re getting fancy, there are only 4 ingredients in it – not counting seasonings – milk or cream (we like it with heavy cream – I know it isn’t the healthiest, but it’s what we like!), butter, garlic and parmesan cheese.

I started this recipe by cooking my chicken. I tossed it, lightly, in a mixture of flour and Umami seasoning. I added it to the pan, along with some garlic, and browned it (cooking it 3/4 of the way through) in a pan with some avocado oil and removed it from the pan.

While the chicken was cooking, I chopped up some fresh broccoli for the sauce. I steamed this in a steamer basked in my pasta pot.

Back to the sauce – after removing the chicken from the pan I turned down the heat to medium-low and melted the butter. Once the butter was melted, I lowered the heat to low and added in the cream and allowed it to heat through.

Once the cream was warmed through, I started adding in the cheese, 1/4 cup at a time and stirring constantly. I find that adding the cheese a little bit at a time helps with ensuring that all of the cheese melts – and you don’t have globs of cheese in your sauce.

Once all of the cheese had been incorporated and melted, I added the chicken back into the pan and stirred.

Then I added in the broccoli from the steamer basket.

And, finally, I added in the pasta. I mixed everything together and it was ready to go.

When serving it, we add a little more parmesan (have I mentioned that we love cheese?) and we’re ready to eat!

Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo Pasta

1 box pasta (I used penne)
2-3 chicken breasts (cut into cubes)
2 tbsp garlic
1 1/2 cups heavy cream (don’t judge!)
1 1/2 cups grated parmesan
2 tbsp butter
2-3 cups broccoli
1-2 tbsp Umami seasoning
2-4 tbsp Flour
Avocado oil spray

  • In a gallon bag, toss chicken with umami seasoning and flour to lighty coat the chicken (adjust amounts depending on how much chicken you are cooking)
  • In hot pan, add avocado oil, garlic and chicken – cook until chicken is 3/4 way done. Remove from pan.
  • Add butter to pan and melt
  • Reduce heat and add cream to pan
  • Once cream is warmed through, add in cheese 1/2 cup at a time – until all cheese has been added and is melted.
  • Return chicken to pan and stir with sauce.
  • Add broccoli and pasta to sauce, mix well.
  • Top with more parmesan cheese, if desired, and enjoy!
by Michelle

Roasted Red Pepper and Chicken Pasta

Almost every weekend, I make pasta – sometimes on Saturdays and sometimes on Sundays. This week, I did it on Sunday.

I was running low on the vegetables that I regularly put in my pasta – asparagus and mushrooms are common vegetables. But, I did have a jar of roasted red peppers in the cabinet – and that’s where it started!

Almost every dish I make (particularly pasta dishes) start with onion and garlic. For this dish, I added in a few other items: Italian panko bread crumbs, fresh basil, Parmesan cheese – to name a few.

Melt the butter in a large skillet and then cook the onions and garlic, until the onions are translucent. For the protein, I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into cubes. I added the chicken and cooked until the chicken was done (amount of time will depend on how small you cut the chicken). Add salt, pepper and umami seasoning at this point.

After rough chopping the red peppers (if not already chopped – the jar I had was pretty much whole peppers), add them to the pan (along with the juice from the jar) and warm through (about 5 min). ** note – I used a 12 oz jar of peppers, but when I make this again, I will use a larger jar.

Once the peppers are warmed through, add the heavy cream and half of the Parmesan cheese to the mixture and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cover. Cook for 10-15 min.

Add pasta to boiling water and cook per directions. I used bow tie pasta, but I think most any pasta would work well with this sauce.

After pasta is done (al dente), drain and add Pasta to skillet. Add remaining Parmesan cheese and stir – sauce will thicken as you let it simmer for the next few minutes.

Garnish with Italian panko bread crumbs and chopped basil and ENJOY!

Roasted Red Pepper and Chicken Pasta

Box of bowtie pasta
1/2 onion (diced)
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp butter
1 jar roasted red peppers
1/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup Parmesean cheese
1 tsp Umami seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
fresh basil
Italian Panko bread crumbs

  • Melt butter in large skillet
  • Add onion and garlic to melted butter
  • Cook onion and garlic until onions are translucent
  • Boil pasta, per directions – to al dente
  • Rough chop the roasted red peppers (if not already diced) and add to skillet (along with juice from jar) and allow to warm through (about 5 min)
  • Once peppers are warmed though, add heavy cream and 1/2 the parmesean cheese to skillet.
  • Bring to boil – then reduce heat to simmer and cover.
  • Cook for 10 – 15 minutes
  • Add drained, al dente pasta to skillet
  • Add remaining parmesean cheese and stir (sauce will thicken as it simmers for a few minutes)
  • Garnish with chopped basil and panko bread crumbs
by Michelle

Skillet Sausage and Rice

Yesterday, I was looking for something quick, easy and with little clean up for lunch. As I always do, I took a look at the items I had on hand and I ended up with this one skillet dish that turned out delicious.

It all started with a chub of Jimmy Dean sausage, asparagus, mushrooms, garlic, beef stock onion and cilantro.

As I worked through chopping vegetables, I thought of seasoning – and I decided to add a packet of ranch dressing seasoning mix.

I started by browning the sausage (medium high heat), along with the onion and garlic.

Once that was done, I added the other vegetables and cooked until semi-tender.

After the vegetables were somewhat tender, I added in the rice and cooked until the rice was somewhat translucent.

Beef broth (that was just what I had on hand, I’m sure that chicken broth or vegetable broth would work just as nicely) was added next. I added half of the cilantro to the skillet and stirred everything up. I brought the skillet up to a boil. Once it was at a boil, I covered the skillet and reduced the heat to simmer – allowing it to cook for 20 minutes (cook until rice is done).

Add the remaining cilantro and serve! Super easy, delicious, easy clean up and reheats nicely!

Skillet Sausage and Rice

1 chub of Jimmy Dean (or similar) regular sausage
2 cups of long grain rice
3 cups of beef stock
1-1/2 cups of mushrooms
1/2 bunch of asparagus (1-1/2 cups, chopped)
1/2 white onion (diced)
1-2 tbsp of garlic (depending on how much you like garlic, I used 2)
2 tbsp chopped cilantro
1 packet of dry ranch dressing mix
salt and pepper to taste

Crumble sausage in skillet, with diced onions and garlic on medium high heat. Cook until sausge is browned and onions are translucent.

Add asparagus and mushrooms, cook for another 5 min (until vegetables are semi-tender).

Add rice and ranch dressing and stir to mix, cook until rice is translucent.

Add beef stock and 1/2 of the cilantro. Stir and bring to boil.

Reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes (until rice is done).

Add remaining cilantro and serve.

by Michelle