Another one of my all-time favorite recipes from my mother is Chicken Spectacular! Mom always calls it a two-day recipe, since it calls for 3 cups of cooked chicken BEFORE you assemble and cook it all again.
Therefore, this recipe is ideal to make when you've already got a half-eaten chicken hanging out in your refrigerator...or if you've got a lot of extra time on your hands, as I did today.
Here's my rendition, all ready to go in for its final hour of cooking in the oven!
Since I didn't have a half-eaten chicken carcass hanging out in my 'fridge, I decided to buy 3 cups worth of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Then I cooked them and finely chopped the meat into bite-sized chunks.
Here's how to make it yourself!
INGREDIENTS:
- 3 cups of cooked chicken, cut up to bite-sized pieces
- 1 package of Uncle Ben's Long Grain & Wild Rice Original - cooked
- 1 small jar of pimentos
- 1 can of cream of chicken soup
- 1 package (12 oz.) of frozen French-cut green beans - par boiled
- 1 cup of real mayonnaise
- 1 can of sliced water chestnuts - drained
- 1/2 cup of sliced almonds (not slivered)
- 5.5 ounces of breadcrumbs
- 1 stick of butter
- Thaw out the green beans by boiling them in water gently, so as to not have them fall apart. Drain and set aside.
- Be sure the chicken is already cooked. To do so, put in a dry casserole dish, cover with foil, and put in oven at 325 degrees for 1 hour.
- Let the chicken cool. While you wait for it to cool, cook the rice, just as it says to on the box.
- While the rice is cooking, cut the chicken into small, bite sized chunks. You'll only need 3 cups worth, but if you have 4, that's OK, too.
- In a big mixing bowl, put the can of soup, pimentos, the drained water chestnuts, the mayonnaise, and the almonds.
- Next, add the chicken to the mixing bowl. Just stir with a spoon.
- Next, add the rice. Just make sure it's cooled down first.
- Add the drained green beans into the mixing bowl. Stir, but be careful not to break the green beans.
- Lastly, add in a whole bunch of love.
- Pour the thick mixture into a 12 by 7.5 by 2 inch casserole dish.
- In a frying pan, melt some of the one stick of butter. Gradually mix in bread crumbs until clumpy. Then melt the rest of the butter and add in more bread crumbs. The goal here is to clump-ify the bread crumbs with yummy butter. The goal is not to brown the breadcrumbs, as this will be done later in the oven.
- Sprinkle the casserole dish with the buttered breadcrumbs. Spread evenly.
- Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 45-minutes to one hour.
