Healthy HomeHere is a recipe for chicken divan that makes enough for 6 freezer meals, plus links for 9 more make-ahead freezer meals–all using real food ingredients!
Guest post by Rachel of day2dayjoys
Hi there Humbled Homemaker readers, I am so thrilled to be sharing here today! Erin and I have been friends for a few years and I absolutely love how Erin encourages grace for moms. This is something I try to do also! No matter which side you are on, breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding, disposable vs. cloth diapers, vaccines vs. no vaccines, organic vs. non organic, the list goes on, let’s encourage and offer grace to each other!
Freezer meals are so easy and convenient.
As a busy mom of 3, some days I fail to plan dinner, 4 p.m. rolls around and I’m thinking what in the world is for dinner? I don’t like to admit it but meal planning is one of my weaknesses. Can any of you relate?
So when I’ve meal planned, it helps, but what I find helps me the most are freezer meals. This can be done several different ways but the ways I think are the easiest are the “dump all ingredients into a freezer zip bag and freeze method.” It’s the method used to make this chicken divan recipe I am about to share with you.
When I was late into my third pregnancy and preparing for my first homebirth, I decided to make a bunch of meals for our family to enjoy when baby London arrived and to share with a couple of friends who were also having babies around the same time.
In this method, you prepare several batches of the same recipe and freeze them in 8×8 disposable pans. So if you have a favorite recipe that your family eats a lot, especially casseroles, you could double or triple the recipe to make more for next time.
For this recipe, these are all of the ingredients you need to make 6 chicken divan casseroles. When I have prepared these in the past, we ate one of them for dinner and saved the other 5.
Chicken Divan
Yield 6 Freezer Meals
Ingredients
- 7 C uncooked rice
- 8 chicken breasts, shredded
- 32 oz mayonnaise (I use vegenaise)
- 2 C sour cream
- 8 C chopped broccoli
- 4 C cheddar cheese
- 1 T garlic powder
- 1 T onion powder
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Gather ingredients.
- Cook rice to according to the directions. (It will take a long time since there'll be so much.)
- While rice is cooking, prepare chicken. You can do this a few different ways such as boiling, sauteing, baking, in the Instant Pot or even in the crock pot beforehand.
- Chop the broccoli, then steam it. Set aside.
- Once the rice, chicken and broccoli are prepared, divide ingredients into two large mixing bowls.
- Then divide the remaining ingredients into the two bowls except for 2 cups of cheese, mix well.
- Pour mixture equally into 6 disposable pans, sprinkle tops with the remaining cheese.
- Cover each pan with foil and place into a freezer zip bag.
- Write cooking directions on zip bag.*
- Place in freezer.
- Enjoy for several dinners to come!
Notes
* Cooking directions to write on foil or zip bag:
- Chicken Divan Casserole (everything is pre-cooked)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Bake for 25-35 minutes or until middle is done
- Enjoy!
I hope you love this recipe–it’s one of our family favorites! For those of you who like some spiciness, you can splash with some buffalo sauce, something my husband always does.
Here are 9 other freezer recipes to enjoy!
- Make Ahead Meatballs
- Chicken Cacciatore
- Baked Ziti
- Chicken Parmesan Casserole
- BBQ Chicken
- Mexican Chicken Chili
- Sunday Night Stew
- Beef Stroganoff
- Chicken & Dumplings using this cream of chicken soup
- And enjoy these freezer biscuits while you’re at it!
Do you ever make freezer meals? What are your favorite recipes?
Rachel is a mother to 3 kids and a wife to a wellness doctor. Her passions are faith, family and health. She supports her husband in helping to change the way people look at their health and uses her blog as a tool to do that. Her husband also has a feature on her blog called “Ask Dr. Jake.” He would be happy to answer any of your health related questions or at least direct your path to some better options.
You can find Rachel writing about her family adventures and inspiring you to make healthier choices for your family and more at day2day joys or on Facebook.
Brenda
How many servings are each of these meals?
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Hi Brenda, thank you for your comment. I purposely did not add servings because everyone’s serving size is different than the next person. This size of 8×8 pans serves our family of 5 (but 4 really because London is 4 mo, so 2 adults, 2 kids) with a little bit of left overs for lunch the next day. Hope this helps!
Nicole
Would this work for three 13×9 pans? I have 9 to feed supper to ever night n I have a 14x10x4 my hubby bought n it’s gone in one meal w lunch for hubby at work the next day so I need big pans
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Nicole. I am sure it would! I don’t see why not. Blessings to you & your family!
Rachel from Thriving Home
Thank you so much for linking to our Chicken Parmesan Casserole! I was excited to see traffic from one of my favorite blogs! We are huge fans of real food freezer cooking over at Thriving Home. I’ve been in a freezer club for seven years, in fact, if you want to read more about this idea. Thanks again and keep up the great kingdom work, Erin! More about my freezer club: http://thrivinghomeblog.com/2014/02/how-to-start-a-freezer-club/.
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
I was happy to find your recipe Rachel… love your name btw! 😉 I really enjoyed looking though y’all’s blog, great info and real food recipes!
Heather @ My Overflowing Cup
I, too, love having meals in the freezer. It really doesn’t take that much longer to make more of what you are already making for dinner. It’s like having a free pass on a busy night. I forgot all about Chicken Divan. I absolutely love it, but for some reason I kind of forgot about it and haven’t made it in forever. Thanks for the reminder and the recipe. Pinning it now. Vegenaise is my favorite. I have trouble eating any other mayo now. Thanks, again!
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
I hope you love it Heather! Chicken Divan is SOOO good and it does taste good with vegenaise!
Linda
I also love Chicken Divan and never thought of freezing it due to the Mayo. Thanks for the great idea.
Ashley
I am new to freezer meals and I make my own mayo (eggs, dry mustard, lemon juice, salt, olive oil) do you think it would freeze well?
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Ashley, thank you for your question. I have never froze mayo but mayo is in this chicken divan recipe and it works well. Maybe search pinterest or google, sorry I can’t help ya out. Let us know if you find out!
Phyllis
What size are the disposable pans and like one other comment, how many servings in each pan?
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Phyllis, I used 8×8 pans. I answered Brenda with the serving size question too. I purposely did not add servings because everyone’s serving size is different than the next person. This size of 8×8 pans serves our family of 5 (but 4 really because London is 4 mo, so 2 adults, 2 kids) with a little bit of left overs for lunch the next day. Hope this helps!
Rebecca Hudson
How deep are your 8×8 pans? I bought 6 and had a ton left over. 7 cups of uncooked rice is a lot of rice for the little 8×8 pans i found.
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Hey Rebecca, so sorry I haven’t responded yet, I see what the issue was, I used brown rice. I am going to email Erin to have her update it, I’m sorry you had so much left over rice, hope you were able to use it!
Jenn P
Last time I made a freezer meal with mayo, it had a funny taste. Not sure if it was the mayo or something else. You have successfully frozen and then eaten one of these that tasted fine?
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Jenn, yes, we eat these at least once a month. So sorry you had a bad experience. Maybe next time you can try the vegenaise, it’s a bit pricier but really healthy! Or maybe taste the mayo first before??
Jenn P
The mayo wasn’t bad…but something happened during the freezing process. I love the sound of this recipe. I might give it a try! Thanks for sharing.
Ally
Sometimes mayo can separate when it is frozen and thawed. Usually this doesn’t cause problems in something like this and other casseroles. Perhaps you made something that the separation caused an issue for??
Amy
Do you bake your freezer meals straight from the freezer still frozen or thaw them out overnight prior to baking?
Erin
Hi Amy, this was a guest post, but I believe it depends on the recipe. Of course, thawing will help things to always cook faster, but I do believe there are ones you can throw into the crock pot or oven straight from your freezer. The individual recipes should tell you. Hope that helps!
Jessika
Hi, what would the recipe be if I didn’t want to make 6 freezer meals? Three is easy to figure up (just half everything)…but I was thinking more like just 2 pans.
Lena
Two pans would be a third of the recipe. If you don’t care to do the math, there are other websites that you can plug in the measurements to and what you’d like to divide by, and it will simplify things for you. I’ve done this before and it does save a lot of time!
Eladia
Do you cover and freeze right away or do you let it cool first? All these recipes sound delicious!!
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Eladia, beautiful name!!! I do let them cook for a little bit, probably around 20 minutes more or less.
nicole
Looks good except for the mayo. I like the idea of freezing recipes like this in flat ziplock bags so they take up less space. You just have to plan ahead so you can defrost in the fridge overnight and then dump into an 8×8 pan or 2 bags into a 9×13 for a large family meal.
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
A zip top bag is a good idea too!! If you cannot have eggs, maybe more sour cream or greek yogurt????
Amanda Mayfield
I made this in the slow cooker today and it turned out really good! The chicken was moist and we added some shredded parm. cheese on top of it for extra taste. This is a keeper and because it is a cheap meal.
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
So glad you loved it Amanda!!!!
Tatjana
Hi! I was wondering how did your potatoes hold up for the BBQ chicken? Tha bbq That’s for these easy and great sounding freezer meals! I love throwing something in the crock pot before we head out for the day and come back to dinner! 🙂
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Tatjana, thank you for stopping by! I am not exactly sure because I didn’t come up with the BBQ chicken, but I am sure Sarah would love to answer your questions. http://pinobsessedmom.blogspot.com/2012/03/freezer-meals-healthy-bbq-chicken.html
Jenetta Penner
Thanks for sharing this. Dinner can really prove to be a challenge for us moms. Looking forward to more tips from you! 🙂
Zach Summers
Hey, now! Dinner can be challenging for us dads as well! Some of us cook! I say that completely in good will. 😉
I’m a Catholic Middle School Teacher and I am looking into even more frugal ways each day to save money here and there.
Rachel, do you have any other casseroles you make that are as large (make for 6 8×8 dishes)? Finding this article was a godsend and I want more recipes! Some of these others helped, but none seem as economic and straightfoward as yours.
Dana
I just made this but only used half of the rice called for. Did you really mean 7 cups Uncooked rice?? I made 6 cups of uncooked rice and was only able to use half. Had I used more it would have been A LOT of rice and incredibly dry. I am really hoping these will turn out ok as I was hoping to share with others.
Erin
Hi Dana, This was a guest post, but I am going to email the author and ask them. I hope it turns out!
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Hi Dana, I see what the problem is with the # of uncooked rice. I used brown rice, so sorry about that! I am going to ask Erin to update the post, hope you were still able to use the extra rice!
Dana
Thanks for clarifying.
Michelle Risk
Sorry to say this but Chicken Divan has Curry Powder and Lemon juice. Always. This recipe is for “Chicken And Broccoli Casserole.
Erin
I’m not sure I understand your question?
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Michelle, I am not a chef or anything, just a mom and I grew up calling this chicken divan, but you can call it whatever you like…. hope you love it! 🙂
Erin
It sounds like a delicious recipe, Rachel. 🙂
Andrea
I am looking for freezer meals that are already cooked and I divide them in lunch size portions for my husband to pull out. Would this recipe be fine for this and he microwave it at work? Is the baking process just to get it hot? Thank you!
Rachel @ day2dayjoys
Andrea, once you’ve made the recipe, I am sure you could make it in individual portions for your husband. We don’t use a microwave so I am not sure how it would turn out but it would probably be good? 🙂 Hope that helps.
Jenna
DO NOT FREEZE MAYONNAISE!!
You can get really sick from freezing it!! I have had it freeze accidentally from a improperly working refrigerator it causes painful stomach cramps and diarrhea!! It even says do not freeze on the container. I would make the chicken, rice & broccoli ahead of time to freeze then add the other ingredients right before baking.