Love the flavors of chicken cordon bleu but would also love a shortcut to actually making this fancy restaurant-style dish at home? Well, I've got you covered with this easy, shortcut Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole!
★ Why You'll Love this Recipe ★
This simple recipe tastes delicious and is easy to prepare. This casserole will feed a family and is freezer-friendly. It's a great dish to share with friends and family.
You don't need a ton of ingredients and once you pair this with a side salad or a vegetable, you have a complete meal. Our family likes to enjoy this dish with Caesar salad or a side of peas.
★ Ingredients You'll Need ★
What's in this Easy Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole?
This casserole has all of the things you'd expect from the classic Chicken Cordon Bleu dish: chicken, ham, Swiss cheese and a creamy sauce.
Top that with bread crumbs for some crunch, all served over cooked white rice. In one pan. Casserole style. An easy weeknight dinner!
★ How to Layer this Recipe ★
- Start with cooked rice.
- Layer in cooked chicken.
- Then diced ham.
- Then Swiss cheese.
- Next spread a layer of cream sauce.
- Finally top off with breadcrumbs before baking.
Super simple! Super yummy!
★ Tips & FAQs ★
The shortcuts that make this recipe so easy.
The whole point of a casserole, in my mind, is that's it makes cooking easy! Everything is in one pan, and prep should be easy. Bonus points if it can be made ahead and its freezer-friendly. This casseroles is all of those things. So what are the secrets to making this delicious dish, super easy yet still delicious?
1. Starting with cooked chicken. Why cook your own chicken when you can get a fresh, hot rotisserie chicken at just about every grocery store for the same price as an uncooked chicken? Cooked grill chicken strips are also available in the meat section for a very reasonable price. This saves so much time not having to cook or worry about extra dishes.
2. Use cooked rice. Cooked rice is affordable and available at almost every store as well. Or if you have leftover white rice from say take-out night the other day, use that! I love to repurpose my Chinese food leftover to make this casserole.
You can use any type of rice you'd like. Plain white rice or chicken flavored rice go great with the classic Chicken Cordon Bleu flavors. But you could get creative and try some mixed flavors like a broccoli cheddar rice blend, chicken with broccoli, creamy chicken rice, or even wild rice. Anything that sounds yummy to you and has a chicken base, will probably taste great!
3. Layer everything in one pan. This recipe uses an 8x8 square baking pan and you simply layer in all the ingredients — cooked rice, then cooked chicken, ham, sauce, cheese and bread crumbs. Everything is cooked so all you need to do is cover and bake until everything is nice and hot and the layers blend together.
4. Use cream of onion, celery, chicken or mushroom soup for the sauce. My favorite is cream of onion but any of the cream soups work and will give you a unique flavor!
Now, if you're picky about your sauce, or you're not into canned cream of sauces, you can certainly make your own by simple making a roux with equal parts butter and flour then add cream or milk and chicken stock, celery, onions or mushrooms.
Get my recipe for homemade white sauce.
However, this recipe is designed to be very easy and convenient so you can use canned cream of chicken soup if you don't have time to make your own sauce.
We are doctoring canned soup to create a sauce by adding Dijon mustard and white cooking wine. These two simple additions can really elevate the sauce without a lot of extra effort.
Doubling the recipe? Then you can experiment with a combination of cream soup varieties to add some depth of flavor. Have fun with it!
What if you don't like Swiss cheese?
Swiss cheese is one of those cheeses that not everyone likes. It has a bit of a sour taste and waxy texture so it's not for everyone. It's the traditional cheese of choice for Chicken Cordon Blue though and that's probably because Swiss and ham go together pretty well.
I'm personally not a huge fan of Swiss cheese but I do enjoy it in this dish. It has some sour notes that really help balance out the salty ham and enhance the cream sauce.
However, if you're adamant that you just can't do it, then there's a great substitution: Havarti cheese. Havarti is a white cheese with very mild flavor yet is a bit softer and is not as sour as Swiss cheese. It's a great substitute is you don't like Swiss cheese.
Add some veggies!
You can serve this Chicken Cordon Bleu casserole with a side salad or a side of roasted veggies.
This dish pairs really well with Brussels spouts, green beans, peas, asparagus or broccoli.
You could also try layering your veggies right into this dish for a true one-pan meal. Just make sure your veggies are cooked.
You can cook the vegetables in the microwave with a bit of salt and butter for about 2-3 minutes, covered.
Fresh or frozen veggies both work here. Chop them up prior to cooking so they layer nicely and once cooked, add them after you layer in the chicken.
Don't have rice?
No worries. You can use egg noodles or pasta in place of the rice. You could also use quinoa for a healthier twist.
★ More Recipes You'll Love ★
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This easy Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole with Rice was featured on South Your Mouth!
Shortcut Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups cooked white rice
- 1 ¾ cups chopped cooked chicken about 9 oz
- 10.5 oz condensed cream of onion soup make your own
- ½ cup heavy cream substitute half and half or milk to lighten up
- 1-2 tablespoon Dijon mustard more or less as desired
- ¼ cup white cooking wine
- 1 cup diced ham
- 4 slices baby Swiss cheese
- ½ cup panko bread crumbs
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Instructions
- Layer rice into an 8x8 baking pan.
- Layer chopped cooked chicken.
- Layer chopped ham.
- Layer Swiss cheese.
- In a small bowl, mix together cream of chicken soup, heavy cream, Dijon mustard and white cooking wine. Drizzle over chicken and spread with a fork to create an even layer of sauce.
- Sprinkle bread crumbs evenly over top.
- Cover and bake at 375˚ for 20 mins. Uncover and bake an additional 15 mins or until bread crumbs are golden brown and center of casserole is hot. (Poke with a fork to check the center)
Wendell Hayman says
My wife doesn’t like onions. What condensed soup can I substitute for Cream of Onion?
Angela G. says
Hi Wendell, You could use cream of chicken or cream of celery instead.
Dawn says
It was really easy and good but i think the Dijon mustard over powered it, i will make again but put less Dijon mustard in it.
Angela G. says
Thanks for the feedback, Dawn!
T. Sheppard says
That looks delicious can't wait to try it!!
Lisa says
Can pasta be used!? Ready-made and microwavable, or egg noodles!?
Angela G. says
Yes! You could use cooked pasta or noodles. If using eggs noodles, you can probably get away with adding those dry and adding a 1/2 cup water with them as the bottom layer and they will cook with the casserole if you want to try that. Pasta is a little tricker so I would buy fresh pasta or cook dry pasta and drain it before you add it as your first layer. You may want to add a tbsp or two of oil to the pasta so it doesn't stick to itself. Hope this helps! Thanks for asking.
Angela G. says
Hi Lisa, I would recommend using rice for best flavor and texture or orzo pasta that is similar to rice.
Holly Woods says
What kinda rice? And you mix the soup in with the milk i dont follow
Angela G. says
Hi Holly, you can use any kind of rice. Plain white rice works best, I think. Yes, just layer the milk over top of the soup. You can use a fork to stir it into the soup but it will also blend as it cooks.
Holly Woods says
@Angela G., what about instant?
Angela G. says
Instant rice is totally fine, but make sure it's cooked first before you layer it in.