Chicken and Stuffing Casserole

Ingredients

  • 1 cup salted butter divided
  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1 cup chopped carrot
  • 1 cup chopped celery
  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth divided
  • 4½ - 5 cups shredded cooked chicken
  • 1 cup frozen peas
  • ½ cup heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (or a heaping teaspoon of dried thyme)
  • ¾ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
  • 2 (6-oz.) packages Savory Herb flavored stuffing mix
  • ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnish

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
  2. In a Dutch oven, melt ½ cup of the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot, and celery, and cook until the vegetables are beginning to soften, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetable mixture and cook, stirring frequently, for 1 minute.
  3. Gradually stir in 4 cups of the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat medium-low. Simmer, stirring often, for about 5 minutes or until the sauce begins to thicken. Stir in the chicken, peas, cream, thyme, salt, pepper, and turmeric. Return to a simmer and cook for 3 minutes more.
  4. Spray a 13-by-9-inch baking dish with nonstick spray and pour in the chicken mixture. Place the remaining ½ cup of butter in a large, microwave safe bowl. Cover and cook on high for 1 minute to melt. Stir in the stuffing mix, remaining 2 cups of chicken broth, and the parsley. Let stand 2 minutes or until the stuffing mix has absorbed the broth.
  5. Top the chicken mixture evenly with the stuffing mixture. Bake until golden brown on top and bubbly around the edges, 30 to 35 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes. Sprinkle with additional chopped parsley before serving.

Notes

28 November 2024: We made this instead of turkey for this year’s Thanksgiving meal. It was awesome! Everyone loved it. We baked it on rack 3 for about 45 minutes, just to make sure the stuffing was nice and crispy on top (it was) and that it was fully heated through. We added a bit more chicken than was called for (about 600 grams), and it boiled over a bit. We later purchased six 24-ounce soup crocks so we can try making it in individual portions next time. We couldn’t find fresh thyme so had to use dried, and we used chicken-flavored stuffing instead of savory herb.

24 December 2024: We made half of the recipe today in the 24-ounce soup bowls - it worked out perfectly! We added about ½ cup of shiitake mushrooms with the veggies (next time we would probably use canned mushrooms, or fresh white ones). Used some oil to start cooking the veggies and added some butter a little later. Next time we’ll cut the veggies a little larger, and also try paprika for color rather than the turmeric. Today we used a prepared stuffing, which was decent, but next time we’ll go back to the Stove Top. We baked these on a half-sheet pan for 35 minutes on rack 3, until they were very hot and bubbling, and the stuffing was crispy on top. They did not boil over. We reheated the two remaining ones the next day at 350°F for 20 minutes.

26 December 2024: We made half of the recipe again in the soup bowls, similar to a few days ago, but this time we tried drop biscuits on top. I used the scaled-up recipe (see: Drop Biscuits) because the soup bowls seemed so large. This worked out very well, except we both agreed that the biscuits were too large. They grew a lot when baked! The biscuits were 165g each, and because the dough is so sticky it worked best to weigh it out, place it on top of the filling in the soup bowl, and then spread it apart with two forks. They baked for 25 minutes at 400°F on rack 3, and the biscuits were baked perfectly.