I re-created our well-loved Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole into a more portable version tonight. Honestly, after making it, I’m not entirely sold on the idea of putting it in muffin tins.
It would work well for an at-home lunch with little people who have small appetites. But for anyone over the age of three or four, I think it might be more convenient to make the casserole, bake it, and then divvy it up into portion-sized airtight containers to freeze.
This is a recipe that freezes really well — baked or unbaked. And it thaws well, and re-heats well. So no matter how you decide to divvy it up and freeze it, it’s hard to go wrong.
By the way, if you’ve not tried this recipe yet, it’s a big favorite of ours. In fact, my kids request to eat it for breakfast when we have leftovers in the fridge! (Truth be told, I usually let them. But hey, it has grains, dairy, protein, and veggies. So I don’t think it can be that detrimental to eat for breakfast. And it’s probably loads better than most boxed cereals on the market — especially if you make your own homemade soup mixes!)
Are you joining us for Lunchbox Freezer Cooking? If you’ve blogged about a lunchbox recipes you’ve made for your freezer, leave a link to your post and recipe below. I can’t wait to see your yummy recipes and ideas!
I think my kids actually might eat broccoli if it is in this form!! 🙂 Can’t wait to try!
I don’t see that you need to apologize for having this for breakfast. Why does breakfast need special food when the other meals don’t? Heck, special foods for breakfast is a relatively recent thing, even more recent for poorer families. Historically people ate leftover dinner if for no other reason than to eat it before it went bad.
I agree! Looks like a perfectly good breakfast food to me (or lunch or dinner)
Just because of my work schedule, we’ll eat foods for dinner that would be considered breakfast foods. Like scrambled eggs or a bowl of Cheerios. Quick and easy. After “dinner” I might feel up to throwing something in the crockpot and let it cook overnight so we’ll have something yummy to pack for lunch. Then we wake up and it smells so good that we’ll want some for breakfast.
We’re weird that way I guess, but hey, that’s just how we roll, and it works for us. 🙂
I love to have supper leftovers for breakfast! I always look forward to it (when there’s actually enough food left lol) 🙂
I think my husband would eat that entire pan!!!
Since I started following your blog, over a year now, I’ve been freezer cooking every two weeks. It’s been amazing. I learned quickly, for our family, that the best way to get the most out of your food, is to portion freeze. If I freeze an entire casserole, you can bet that 50%+ is going to get thrown away. I don’t know why, but my family just doesn’t do leftovers (yes, I am aware that freezer cooking is just that).
Obviously each family has their own way of doing things, but that’s just what I’ve found is easiest and lets us eat a variety of things throughout the week without wasting. I definitely suggest trying it out with your meals to see how your family likes it though. You’ll use use up more containers, but you’ll be able to track when you need to cook again based on how many end up back in your cabinet.
This looks so yummy! I made fake McMuffins for lunches!
I have some of the Chicken Broccoli and Rice dinner in our freezer right now. We really like it. I make it dairy free by leaving out the cheese and making my own cream soups. My kids like it but I don’t think they would eat it for breakfast.
I made the mini lasagna recipe you had listed. But I made it dairy free. I made them two ways, one without any diary at all and one with sheep’s cheese added. We can eat goat and sheep cheese but not cow’s milk cheese. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day for us so I am going to make bean and cheese sauce burritos for a quick and easy freezer cooking day.
I was thinking about the serving size of the muffin tins when I made my macaroni the other day. For my husband I used freezable containers that were more like his size portion and made the muffin tins for my son. I was thinking that maybe a jumbo muffin pan would work well too?
my husband loved this. I didn’t use as much rice as your recipe calls for but he loved it and has eaten it 3 days straight!