Description
This Chicken and Spinach Casserole is a creamy, cheesy comfort food masterpiece that brings together rotisserie chicken, nutritious spinach, fluffy white rice, and a luscious cream sauce topped with golden mozzarella and Parmesan. Brightened with fresh lemon juice and zest, this one-dish meal is perfect for busy weeknights, meal prep, or feeding a crowd. Easy to make, deeply satisfying, and guaranteed to become a family favorite!
Ingredients
For the Casserole Base:
-
Cooking spray
-
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
-
1½ cups chopped yellow onion
-
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
-
2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning
-
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
-
1¾ teaspoons kosher salt (divided)
-
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
For the Creamy Sauce:
-
2½ cups whole milk
-
4 oz chive & onion cream cheese
For the Filling:
-
4 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
-
3 cups cooked long-grain white rice
-
2 (10-ounce) packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
-
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
-
1 teaspoon lemon zest
For the Topping:
-
8 oz part-skim mozzarella cheese, shredded
-
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
Crank your oven to 350°F and move the rack up to the upper third position. Spray your baking dish really well with cooking spray—get in the corners, be generous about it. One time I was rushing and barely sprayed it and then spent half my evening after dinner scrubbing carbonized cheese off the edges while my husband watched TV. Still bitter about that.
Melt your butter in the skillet over medium heat. Once it’s all melted and starting to foam a bit, dump in the onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper, and ¾ teaspoon of salt. Stir it around pretty often for about 4 minutes until the onions go from opaque to translucent—not brown, just soft and see-through-ish. This is the stage where my entire house starts smelling incredible and suddenly my kids appear from wherever they were claiming to do homework asking what’s for dinner and when will it be ready. My dog Murphy starts following me around the kitchen like something that smells that good must somehow involve him getting treats.
Sprinkle the flour over everything in the skillet and keep stirring it for about a minute. It’s going to look super weird and pasty and clumpy and you’re going to think you messed something up. You didn’t. That’s how it’s supposed to look. First time I made this I genuinely thought I’d ruined it because it looked so strange at this stage. You’re just cooking the raw flour taste out so your final sauce doesn’t taste like you’re eating paste. Don’t let it brown though—keep it blonde. If it starts getting brown your heat’s too high.
This step makes me nervous literally every single time even though I’ve done it approximately a thousand times. Pour in the milk really slowly—like painfully slowly—while you whisk constantly and I mean your arm is going to get tired but you cannot stop whisking or you will get lumps and lumpy sauce is the worst. Keep whisking for about 3 minutes until everything thickens up and stops looking like milk with flour floating around in it and starts looking like actual sauce. You’ll feel it change—it’ll start coating the whisk differently and pulling away from the pan differently. That’s your signal it’s ready.
Drop the cream cheese right into your sauce along with the remaining teaspoon of salt. Keep stirring until everything melts together into this smooth creamy gorgeous situation. This is where I always “quality control taste test” which really means I want an excuse to eat a spoonful of this sauce because it’s ridiculously good. Sometimes I’ll add a tiny bit more salt here if it needs it—every batch is slightly different depending on your chicken and cheese.
Pull the skillet completely off the heat. Now add your shredded chicken, rice, that extremely well-squeezed spinach, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Stir everything together until every component is coated in sauce. Should look creamy and cohesive, not like there are dry patches of rice or random chunks of chicken sitting there looking sad. I use a big wooden spoon for this and kind of fold it together like you would with cake batter.
Scrape everything into your baking dish and spread it out relatively evenly. Use a rubber spatula to get every last bit out of the skillet because that’s where all the flavor lives and I refuse to waste it. Smooth the top down so it’s mostly flat—doesn’t need to be perfect but relatively level helps the cheese melt uniformly.
Sprinkle both cheeses all over the top. Do not be conservative about cheese. This is not the moment for restraint. Get it all the way to the edges. Put it in the oven for 15 minutes. You’ll know it’s done when it’s bubbling around the edges and the cheese has melted.
Switch to broil and please please please do not walk away from your oven. I am begging you. Stay right there. Stare at it through the window for 2-3 minutes. Cheese goes from perfect to completely burned in approximately 30 seconds under the broiler. I have personally done this at least seven times because I thought “oh I’ll just check this text message real quick” and next thing I know there’s smoke billowing out and my smoke alarm is screaming. Pull it out the second you see nice golden brown spots.
Notes
-
Make your rice the day before and refrigerate it—cold rice actually works better in casseroles because it doesn’t get mushy
-
Don’t let your roux brown! You want it blonde and smooth, not toasted
-
If your sauce seems too thick, whisk in a splash more milk; too thin? Let it simmer a bit longer
-
For extra flavor depth, add a splash of white wine to the aromatics before adding flour
-
Season as you go—taste that sauce before adding everything together and adjust salt if needed
-
Use kitchen shears to cut the rotisserie chicken directly into the skillet—less mess, less dishes!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American