Chicken Marsala Rice Bake

Recipe Type: Chicken, Casserole

Cuisine: Italian

Author: Claire McCormick of “Claire Tastes”

Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 45 mins

Total time: 1 hour 15 mins

Serves: 12

A quick chicken marsala casserole with fresh parsley, peas, and a healthy dose of parmesan cheese! Serve with a side salad and some crusty bread for sopping up the extra juice!

Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 small onion, sliced thinly
3 tsp minced garlic
16 oz sliced mushrooms
1 small container capers
1 1/2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup marsala cooking wine
1/2 cup low fat milk (I used 1%)
2 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1.5 lbs chicken cutlets, sliced thinly (about 6 cutlets total)
1 1/2 cups instant brown rice, uncooked
3/4 cup frozen peas
1/2 bunch Italian parsley, chopped roughly (about 1/3 cup total)
8 oz (?) freshly shredded or grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a large skillet, heat 2 tbsp oil on medium-high. Add onions and mushrooms and cook until soft, stirring occasionally, about 7 minutes. Stir in capers.
Add garlic, salt and pepper and stir to combine. Sprinkle flour over top and stir continuously for 1 minute.
Reduce heat to a low simmer. Add marsala wine and milk, stirring until thickened- about 3-4 minutes.
Transfer mixture to a small saucepan. Add chicken broth and simmer (careful not to let the liquid reduce too much- we will need it for cooking the rice later!).
Meanwhile, sprinkle chicken cutlets with salt and pepper. Add 1 tbsp remaining olive oil to skillet and cook on medium-high heat until browned on both sides, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
In a 9×13 casserole dish sprayed with cooking spray, add rice in a thin layer. (It will stick to the pan, sort of like flouring a cake pan!)
Layer chicken on top of rice. Sprinkle peas over top.
Carefully pour the mushroom sauce over the top of the casserole. Sprinkle with parsley.
Cover tightly with foil and bake 35-40 minutes or until rice is cooked through (the time may change depending on what kind of rice you’re using!).
Uncover, sprinkle with cheese and bake 5 more minutes until cheese is melted.
**You can also make this a day in advance and either freeze it and reheat, or keep it in the fridge uncooked (the uncooked rice will soak up some of the liquid get a bit soft! You can add more liquid if you need to, although 2 cups worked for us) and then cook the next day. Make sure all the rice gets cooked- a few of our grains were a little “crunchy” still and we just stuck the casserole back in the oven!