Revamping Recipes: King Ranch Chicken Casserole

With a name like King Ranch Chicken Casserole, how can you go wrong?  This recipe is a lot like Chicken and Chip Casserole, but instead of chips it calls for corn toritllas and instead of one can of cream of chicken soup, it calls for two cans of cream of whatever you want soup.  That’s my kind of recipe – already made to revamp!  This one needs little introduction because the pictures speak for themselves about how delicious this is.

The chicken is not pictured.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp oil
• 1/2 an onion, diced (I used a whole small red onion)
• 1/2 cup diced peppers (all green or a mix, like I did tonight)
• 2 15-oz cans cream of whatever soup, a combo of mushroom and chicken is quite nice.  (I used one can of cream of chicken and one can of cream of celery because I don’t care for mushrooms – also the cans my grocery store carries are only 10 oz. so I used two 10 oz. cans of tomatoes to make up for it)
• 1 15-oz can Rotel tomatoes or your store brand of tomatoes with green chilies or a can of diced tomatoes and a small can of diced green chilies
• 2 cups or so cooked diced chicken
• 12 corn tortillas, cut or torn into pieces
• 2 cups grated Cheddar cheese or a Mexican blend

I started by preheating the oven to 350 degrees and cutting up the onion and pepper – gorgeous already!

Then I cooked the diced chicken and vegetables in the oil until the chicken was fully cooked and the vegetables were soft.

  When the chicken was fully cooked, I added both cans of tomatoes and soup (since my grocery store didn’t carry any 15 oz. cans of either the tomatoes or the soup and I wanted to make sure I had enough mixture to use in the casserole) and mixed it together.

Then I ripped the twelve tortillas into random pieces and got layered 1/3 of them on the bottom of a 9”x13” baking dish.

Then I layered 1/3 of the chicken mixture on top of that along with 1/3 of the shredded cheddar cheese.  I repeated this two more times until all the ingredients were used up.  Look at how colorful it is!

Then I baked it for 40 minutes and it came out look beautiful!  This recipe looks and tastes a lot like the Chicken and Chip Casserole, but this one is a little better because the tortillas are already soft and didn’t get soggy like the chips did.  I liked that this recipe gave me options, even though I would change some ingredients anyway.  I didn’t stick completely to the recipe, but it still turned out tasting delicious.  This is such a simple, fun, and delicious recipe anyone could make and most people would enjoy.  Add some jalapenos for a kick if you like things spicy.  Seriously, if you never tried Chicken and Chip Casserole yet, then you have to try King Ranch Chicken Casserole.  You won’t be sorry!

This post is a part of Tasty Tuesday over at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.