Poppy Seed Chicken Bake

This is the ultimate potluck chicken dish.  Bake this for your next church or work gathering and everyone will be begging you for the recipe.  I discovered it near the end of my pregnancy when I was constantly scouring the web for recipes I could make ahead and freeze in hopes that I wouldn't have to put forth any effort in my cooking for the first few weeks postpartum.  It has now become one of the few meals that are frequently repeated in my kitchen.  It is super easy and SUPER yummy!

Ingredients:  chicken, rice, canned condensed cream of chicken soup, sour cream, poppy seeds, dried dill, butter, Ritz crackers.

Rub a couple of bone-in skin-on chicken breasts with olive oil and season with kosher salt and pepper.  Roast for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees. 

If you are feeling extra lazy you can just buy a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store.  I've done this before and it is actually better, but because I'm into saving money I usually make my own.

Remove the skin and the bones and chop the meat into chunks.  Throw it into a mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, make some instant rice according to the package directions.

Add the rice, cream of chicken soup and sour cream to the bowl with the chicken.

And mix it well.

Then add the poppy seeds and dill and season with salt and pepper to taste.

And mix it all together.

It's time for a quick lesson on cooking for two; something I feel like I have mastered since I got married.  There are 3 ways to make cooking for two successful:  1) eat leftovers.  This one I usually try to avoid unless the recipe reheats well.  2) halve/quarter the recipe.  You may have already noticed from the disconnect between my pictures and the written recipes in some of my other posts that I do this pretty frequently.  3) freeze half of the recipe and cook it later.  This is my favorite option because you get two meals for the effort of one.  That's what I'm doing with this recipe.

This is where loaf pans come in handy.  They are perfectly portioned for two people.  I grease one and line the other with parchment paper.  I will freeze the one with parchment paper overnight and in the morning I can pull it out of the loaf pan, wrap the frozen meal in foil, write on it and tuck it away in the freezer for another day when I don't have time to make dinner.  The frozen meal fits perfectly back into a loaf pan when I'm ready to cook it later.  It's a great system!

Spread the chicken mixture evenly into both pans (or one larger pan if you're cooking the whole thing now).

Toss some Ritz crackers into a food processor.

And pulse until you have crumbs.  If you don't have a food processor you can put them in a Ziploc bag and pound them with whatever you have (meat tenderizer, hammer, your fists, etc.).

Melt some butter.

And add it to the cracker crumbs.

Mix until all of the crumbs are moistened.

Then spread it evenly over the chicken mixture.  At this point I pop one of them in the freezer and bake the other at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until it is heated through and the top is golden.  To reheat the frozen one, cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes then remove the foil and bake uncovered for 30 more minutes.

This is creamy, comforting goodness with a buttery, crunchy topping.  Potluck chicken at it's finest!  Definitely a staple at our house.

Link to the printable recipe:

Poppy Seed Chicken Bake

Source:  All Recipes