Chicken Noodle Casserole

This comfort food recipe for chicken noodle casserole takes everyone’s favorite feel better soup and transforms it into a hearty pot pie supper.

I do love me a good old-fashioned chicken noodle soup (you might have guessed this from the zillion chicken noodle soups I have on the site).

And while I am 100% okay with eating chicken noodle soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the rest of my multigenerational crew often likes to have something a little more substantial for supper.

So this recipe for chicken noodle casserole was born. All the chicken noodle flavors and ingredients, plus a couple of extras to transform it into satisfying comfort food baked form.

Speaking of comfort, you know what else is all kinds of comforting? Flowers!

My friend Brandy at Nutmeg Nanny (who lives practically down the street from me, and boy are we going to finally start our supper club once things are safe and sound) told me about this little piece of heaven called the Apex Flower Farm.

They are a local farm that will bring you a bunch of in-season flowers and drop them in a pitcher of water that you have left outside your door.

Anemones! I practically danced around my kitchen with happiness. There are definitely times when we can all use some comfort, and I recommend a fist-full of flowers.

And chicken noodle casserole.

Back at this recipe, like I said, it includes all the important chicken noodle soup players. Chicken. Noodles (I like using thin egg noodles for this one). Veggies.

Chicken broth kicked up a notch with some poultry seasoning. I do love poultry seasoning.

What is poultry seasoning?

Poultry seasoning is a combo of ground thyme, sage, marjoram and sometimes a little black pepper. It gives that little something extra to chicken dishes (and I also sometimes use it on fish).

I always have some in my spice drawer, but if you don’t have any on hand, you can combine dried sage (that spice is essential to poultry seasoning) with any of those others above and you will be just fine.

In order to transform this recipe into casserole form, all I did was add a little flour to the mixture to turn the liquid into more of a sauce form, and to top everything off with some fresh breadcrumbs.

How to make fresh bread crumbs

I am CONSTANTLY whipping up fresh breadcrumbs, because I have yet to meet a recipe that doesn’t get better with a sprinkle of buttery crunchy breadcrumbs, and those type of breadcrumbs are the best when you start with fresh bread.

Grab a slice or two, tear them into quarters and pop them into your food processor. Give them a whirl…and that’s it! Fresh breadcrumbs!

How to make chicken noodle casserole

Preheat your oven to 350 and spray a casserole with cooking spray.

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium high heat.  Add some fresh breadcrumbs that you have cleverly whirled up in your food processor and stir until golden.  Scoop ‘em out and set ’em aside.

Add another two tablespoons of butter to the skillet and melt over medium high heat. Add a chopped sweet onion, 4 chopped carrots and 4 stalked of chopped celery and sauté those sweet veggies until just tender, about 5 minutes.  

Stir in a couple tablespoons of flour – this is to thicken things up just a bit.

Pour in 2 cups chicken broth and stir it up.  Add a teaspoon of poultry seasoning along with a little salt and pepper and bring to a simmer.   

Add 8 ounces of thin egg noodles and simmer it all up until the noodles are tender, about  6 to 8  minutes.  Stir in a couple cups of cooked shredded chicken.

Pour the chicken and noodle mixture into the casserole and top with the bread crumbs.  Bake until it is hot and bubbling around the edges, about 30 minutes, and serve it up!

Chicken noodle magic…it makes everything all better!