This King Ranch Chicken Casserole is an easy dish that you can customize to suit your taste. It is sure to be a family favorite!

Have you guys heard of King Ranch Chicken? I hadn’t until a friend of mine made it into a casserole and I ate some. I’m not a huge chicken enchilada fan, but this casserole was so so good. She made it with shredded Parmesan and the Italian cheese blend instead of the normal cheddar which I really loved. This casserole doesn’t have peppers or cream of mushroom soup in it like most other versions call for. Which made me very happy. Instead it uses cream of chicken only.

See all that Parmesan cheese on top? Perfection. The recipe in the photo was halved and cooked in a square baking dish, but the recipe I’m sharing is the full size baked in a 9×13 dish. Now. The nerd in me needed to know why it’s called King Ranch Chicken. Soooo I googled it and came up with this: It’s apparently a very popular dish in Texas and the name comes from the famous King Ranch in in Kingsville, TX which is the largest ranch in THE WORLD. Impressive. Even though it’s named after the King Ranch, the people there didn’t create it and the wife of the owner hated that people thought it. Because you know. Beef.

Another little fact for you:  King Ranch Chicken was among one of the recipe staples that First lady, Ladybird Johnson, wife of President Lindon B. Johhson liked to have served at her LBJ ranch in Stonewall, Texas.  It was listed as one of the red book recipes kept (collection of favorite recipes that her ranch staff kept in a red book) in the archives at the Lindon B Johnson Library at the University of Texas. So. There you go. You are welcome.

5.0 from 1 reviews

King Ranch Chicken Casserole

 

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

45 mins

 

Author: Mandy Bird

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 2 cups chopped cooked chicken
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 cans (10¾ oz) condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1 can (10 oz) diced tomatoes with green chiles, undrained
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• ½ teaspoon garlic salt
• 8 soft flour tortillas torn into 1-inch pieces
• 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1 cup Italian cheese blend

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray 13x9-inch glass baking dish with cooking spray.
2. In large bowl, stir together chicken, onion, garlic salt, chili powder, soup and tomatoes.
3. Layer one-third of the tortilla pieces in baking dish. Top with one-third of the chicken mixture and ⅔ cup of the cheese. Repeat layers twice.
4. Bake uncovered 30 to 35 minutes or until bubbly.
5. Serve.

Notes

You can substitute corn tortillas if you prefer. You can also add a diced red bell pepper as well. And you can also replace one can of cream of chicken with one can of cream of mushroom.

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