I tried a chicken cordon bleu casserole recipe going around on Pinterest. There are several varieties but casseroles are wonderful for frozen leftovers to pull out later. I saw a few versions of this and decided to try the first one that didn’t require milk, as I rarely have milk on hand anymore.
One of my favorite college meals was the frozen chicken cordon bleu. It was so easy to make and was different than most of the easy foods I made regularly and cheaply. My main diet consisted of pasta and pizza back then.
Ingredient Essentials:
All of the recipes have chicken, ham, and Swiss cheese but that’s all that the recipe I followed had in common with the others. Most used milk for moisture. This one added rice and I really don’t know why. The milk was replaced with cream of chicken soup.
Here’s a link to the recipe I used. Some will be irritated as I believe it did not list the baking temperature. I cooked it at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, as I recall.
These ingredients were all things that I try to keep on hand regularly, so it was a great addition. The rice was cooking underneath the chicken, ham, and Swiss cheese in the cream of chicken. I’m a big fan of rice and quinoa to build up a meal, but in this particular case, it really seemed like a missed opportunity.
How it turned out:
It baked really easily and evenly. However, the ham slices with thick Swiss slices over it, encouraged the entire thing to slide apart. No big deal. The Swiss didn’t really melt into the dish but certainly did melt on top and didn’t burn. The ratios weren’t provided in the recipe either.
I put several ham slices layered and next time I’d lean toward more ham and less Swiss. Other recipes called to shred the Swiss which could help with that. I believe I saw one add mozzarella. I also froze both the ham and Swiss cheese prior to using them on this casserole. I freeze things overcautiously when I think I will go four days without using an item.
What I’d do differently next time:
Next time I’d like to try green beans instead of rice. I’m not sure if that will work out correctly as green beans will add moisture and rice takes it away, but I really feel like anything that’s cheese-covered like this is an easy way to incorporate those more fibrous vegetables, which I love anyway. The rice didn’t add anything but substance here and veggies can accomplish the same thing. If satiety isn’t right after the swap, I can always add rice to the recipe or after as a side dish.
I’m also leaning toward adding some mozzarella and shredding or cutting the Swiss into thinner pieces than the deli Swiss was already sliced in. I’m a big fan of Swiss, but it just really needed to be a bit gooier.