Oven Baked Chicken and Rice

by Aliasmk

9.7K350

Intro: Oven Baked Chicken and Rice

Today I'd like to share with you how I made an oven baked rice and chicken drumstick casserole!

I'm away at university most of the time where my normal meals consist of breakfast cereal, the $10 pick up special from Pizza Nova or... well, mostly just those too.

For some reason I felt like mixing it up this weekend and this is the result. It's a basic recipe yes, but most of the time to make it is just the thing in the oven cooking (10 minutes prep). This is great because that means I can go back to browsing Instructab- I mean... doing homework during that time.

This was my first time making this dish. I looked up a few online recipes and Youtube videos about oven baking rice and chicken, put them together and ended up with the recipe outlined in this article. It turned out quite well in my opinion. Thoughts on the process and any improvements I feel I could have made are outlined on the last step.

Hope you enjoy!


PS: This is my entry into the Beyond the Comfort Zone, and Slow Cooking contests. I'm not sure if this really counts as slow cooking, but considering my microwave pasta trays only take 4 minutes to cook, an hour and a half seems like a pretty long time to me.
I would really appreciate your votes if you believe this instructable to be worthy of them!

STEP 1: Ingredients and Utensils

Ingredients:

  • 5 chicken legs (drumsticks)
  • 1 Can Cream of Mushroom or Celery Soup
  • 1 cup water
  • 3/4 packet of onion soup mix (dry)
  • 1 1/4 cup of white rice (not instant)
  • Olive Oil (for greasing the dish, can substitute for butter or cooking spray)

Utensils:

  • Oven-safe casserole dish (mine was 2.3L, with a glass cover)
  • Mixing Bowl
  • Whisk
  • Measuring Cups
  • Meat Thermometer (technically optional but highly recommended)
  • Oven (not optional)

In the photo you see I also have a bag of Vegeta shown. I was originally going to try and add that in somewhere but did not. I'm leaving that for an experiment for the next batch, in which I would probably substitute part of the onion soup mix for the Vegeta. If it works, I'll update this recipe.

STEP 2: Preparing the Dish

    Preheat your oven to 350oF before you begin, and it should be ready by the time you are. Grease the casserole dish using olive oil, melted butter or cooking spray. Measure out the rice and distribute it evenly over the bottom of the dish.

    Combine the canned soup, water, and onion soup powder in a mixing bowl, and whisk until well mixed. Try to make sure that there are no clumps from the canned soup remaining.

    Pour the mix evenly over the rice. Lightly mix together with the rice.

    Wash your hands before touching raw poultry. Take the chicken legs and place them side by side in the rice. Roll them around so they are covered in the rice/soup mix. Wash your hands again after you have finished handling the meat.

    Place the cover on your casserole dish and place it in the preheated oven, for 1.5 hours.

    STEP 3: After Cooking

    After an hour and a half has passed, carefully remove the dish from the oven with oven mitts or a towel. The rice should have expanded. Use an instant read thermometer to ensure that the internal temperature of the chicken is 165oF or higher. Thermometers take the guesswork out of ensuring your meat is fully cooked. My midterms are in two weeks, I'd really rather not get Salmonella :)

    Let stand for 5 minutes with the cover still on.

    STEP 4: Enjoy!

    Your oven baked chicken and rice is ready to eat! With a casserole dish sized similar to mine you can probably get 4 or 5 servings out of one batch.

    Improvements to the Recipe

    I've already updated this recipe with what I believe would make this recipe better. When I first made it, the taste of the rice was slightly too intense, so adding a little bit more water and a little bit less onion mix would fix that.
    Like I mentioned on the ingredients page, I plan to swap the onion soup powder for Vegeta in later experiments, because I believe my grandmother uses it when she makes chicken and rice like this. And I love my grandmother's rice.

    I didn't think of it at the time, but next time I'd probably prepare some broccoli or other vegetable to go with this to make it a full meal.

    Thanks for reading!

    I'd be interested to know your thoughts on this recipe - perhaps someone more skilled can offer some advice on how to further improve it! I hope you enjoyed this Instructable, and I hope you enjoyed the dish if you did end up making it! Thanks for reading!