Chicken & Rice Casserole (No Labor Version)

What good family recipe blog wouldn't have a basic can-o-dis chicken & rice casserole recipe? In fact, this one does, since 2016.  Looking for a way to prepare leftovers from my Easy Breezy Roast Chicken and Rice, posted in 2015 and found here, I created a recipe that reminded me of the potluck suppers I would go to with my mom as a kid in the late '50s and early '60s that were either church or Cub Scout related. In fact, I called that recipe Potluck Chicken and Rice Casserole, found here. It's a good, basic casserole recipe, but it requires preparation time that includes cooking the rice in advance and sautéing the onions and celery before anything is assembled as a casserole or put in the oven.

On this occasion,  I had a box of Minute Rice on-hand that had been delivered to us during the CoVid lock-down by mistake.  I don't use Minute Rice because I found it inferior to par-boiled rice, like Uncle Ben's and especially inferior to today's microwaveable rice cups.  Minute Rice has been around since 1941 and was initially used by the military during WWII before becoming heavily marketed in the 1950s as a convenience food. Minute Rice is essentially cooked rice that's been dehydrated.  Reconstituting it requires very little time, hence the name.  On its own, reconstituted dehydrated rice is mealy and doesn't taste very good.

I also had on-hand a more recent entry into the convenience food market, a pouch of Perdue chicken breast strips.  They're fully cooked, refrigerated - not frozen - and taste delicious, perfect in fact as a convenience ingredient for a casserole, but we use it also for chef's salads, chicken Caesar salads, chicken quesadillas and other recipes.  It's that good. Absent this ingredient, you could use leftover rotisserie chicken, or simply simmer a couple of chicken breasts in chicken broth for 20 minutes, cool, then dice.

Looking for a very simple throw-together chicken and rice casserole recipe, there seems to be a lot of Mamaws who created one because the Internet is littered with the same recipe, called Mamaw's Chicken & Rice Casserole. Or it could be the same Mamaw.  Or, as I suspect, that was the name given to a recipe printed on a box of Minute Rice, or perhaps in a collaborative print advertisement with Campbell's Soup. It just sounds made-up by a 1950s Madison Avenue Advertising Exec, hired to increase sales of Minute Rice and/or Campbell's Soup. They knew Minute Rice wasn't terribly good on its own, but mixed in a casserole with other convenience ingredients, it was sure to sell, especially if your grandmother said so.

Regardless of this recipe's origins, it really doesn't get any easier than this and I took my version from the AllRecipe website. The author claims her grandmother used to make it and got the recipe from another lady at a church potluck supper, whom I'll wager discovered the recipe in a 1950s women's magazine.  

One could jigger with the ingredients a little and add cheese or vegetables like combined peas & carrots, or broccoli florets.  The original recipe is made with water, which I did on this occasion, but I would use (and note in the recipe below) using chicken stock as a flavor enhancer.

Ingredients
1 8 or 9-oz pouch of pre-cooked chicken breast (like, Perdue Short Cuts Roasted Carved Chicken Breast)
2 cups Minute Rice
2 cups* chicken stock (like Swanson's or Kitchen Basics)
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup (like, Campbell's)
1 can Cream of of Celery Soup (like, Campbell's)
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup (like, Campbell's)
1/2 stick of butter
salt & pepper to taste
non-stick butter-flavored cooking spray (like, Pam)
* Note: In high altitudes above 5,000 feet, use 2-1/3 cups of chicken stock

The Recipe
Pre-heat oven 400F degrees.

Mix all ingredients except the butter in a large mixing bowl, stirring well to combine.  Fold out the mixture into a 9" x 13" casserole or baking dish sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, leveling out the top with a spoon or spatula. Cutting the butter into 9 pats, scatter them on top of the casserole.

Bake uncovered an hour and ten minutes until browned an bubbly.  Add ten minutes to the cooking time if in altitudes above 5,000 feet.