classic campbells chicken cassarole

I was introduced to this recipe by my dear friend Noah while we were in college. Our little group of friends used to gather together once a week and cook together, watch movies and play Guitar Hero at what we called Thursday Night Dinners. It was by far my favorite part of college, especially my last year there. At the time, I had believed that Noah and his family were chicken geniuses, but I've realized recently that this recipe has been on the back of Cream of Mushroom soup cans of Campbell's for about 50 years. I was actually about to call Noah and ask him for the exact recipe when I was at the grocery store and grabbed a can of Cream of Mushroom and saw it on the back.

The amazingness of this recipe comes from it's ease- as well as it's taste! We always doubled the recipe when we were feeding all of our friends, but for Ed and I the original recipe was enough. Another change my friends and I usually did was to use Cream of Asparagus or Cream of Celery as the base of the recipe, but Ed likes Cream of Mushroom so I went with it.

It's essential that you actually add water to this recipe. I was reading a review where a person chose to use 2 cans of condensed soup instead of the water, and it was glumpy and the rice was weird. I didn't use regular rice and chose to use instant rice because I worried about the chicken cooking faster than the rice because I used boneless, skinless rather than bone in.

I use way more paprika than they suggest, but that's because it's my favorite spice. I also added a little garlic powder. At this point, the only thing left to do is bake and go! Oh, and to enjoy!

Classic Campbell's Chicken Casserole

1 can Cream of Mushroom condensed soup

1 cup water

3/4 cup uncooked instant rice

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp black pepper

Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine soup, water and spices together in a baking dish. Place chicken on top of rice. Season chicken with more spices and place in oven. Bake for 45 minutes or until chicken is cooked through and rice is soft. Let stand for 10 minutes. Enjoy!