Easy Chicken And Broccoli Bake {With Cheesy Sauce}

Cheesy Topping? Tender chicken and broccoli covered in a melting cheese sauce? This Chicken and Broccoli Bake is a quick and easy weeknight meal. Try this chicken and broccoli bake with a delicious healthy cheese sauce.

Chicken And Broccoli Bake

You know those nights when you're unsure what to make, your day hasn't allowed for a huge amount of time for meal prepping and that what's for dinner Mom thing's happening alarmingly early? Try this bake. It's fast, it's kid friendly and it's a big hit in our house with a total time needed of around 25 minutes.

This chicken and broccoli bake is baked in one dish and makes for a really yummy, yet super simple dinner you can throw together quickly during the week. I use either fresh broccoli florets or frozen broccoli, pre cooked, to make this.

You cook the broccoli until tender anyway so the extra moisture content from using frozen broccoli doesn't affect the end result. And if it doesn't scare the kids too much, you can add some mushrooms in too!

Having both chicken and broccoli means it's a one pan meal (aren't they just the best kind!), you can add some potatoes onto the side if you like but if times an issue i'll often grab a loaf of fresh crusty bread and we'll have that with this instead of potatoes. Bread's a great way to mop up the cheesy sauce this is baked in, it's an either or thing really, a delicious pile of mashed potato is just as good, it just adds a bit of prep time to your evening!

I make this bake using my healthy cheese sauce. It adds some white beans (in the creamy sauce) to the dinner and an extra dose of nutrients for the kids, plus I usually have some of this in the fridge, being a family of cheese lovers and knowing the kids eat most things happily if cooked in cheese sauce! So. Grab a baking dish and get cooking!

More Clean Eating Bakes

• Three ingredient potato bake
• Sausage breakfast bake
• Cheese and tomato bake
• Mushroom and mozzarella bake
• Bacon breakfast casserole
• Healthy cauliflower and broccoli casserole

Make Ahead

Not only is this pretty fast anyway, there's a few things you can do to make it even speedier! If you have a supermarket near you that sells rotisserie chicken and you happen to find yourself with one, you can use the chicken from that for this bake.

You can also use leftover chicken if you've made a roast, or use some cold torn chicken you can buy in packs in the supermarket. Of course you can also pan fry a couple of chicken breasts and cut them into strips if you have them, the chicken doesn't need to be from a particular part of the bird, any chicken meat works in this. If i'm cooking the chicken especially for this recipe i just find chicken breasts the fastest to cook.

Broccoli can also be cooked ahead of time and kept cooked, in the refrigerator, for a couple fo days ready to be used straight in this recipe. In fact, you can make the whole dish and then cover it with some food wrap and keep it in the fridge ready t o pop into the oven when you're ready to bake it. This way you get the crisp cheesy topping that you only really get when it's baked freshly, but you're able to make the dish up ahead of time so you can just cook it and have it on the table in 20 minutes.

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Chicken And Broccoli Bake Leftovers

I store the leftovers if there are any of this bak in the fridge where they can stay happily, covered with food wrap, for a couple of days. While you lose the initial cheesy crispiness of the freshly cooked cheese topping you get all the yumminess if you reheat this in the microwave for a few minutes until it's piping hot throughout.

We often have this as leftovers as a next day lunch, it's filling, healthy and pretty darn tasty!

How To Make Chicken And Broccoli Bake

Ingredients

• 2 Cups Chicken Cooked, either breast meat or leftover cooked chicken
• 2 Cups Broccoli florets Cooked, fresh or frozen
• 1 Batch Cheese sauce See post for recipe
• ½ Cup Cheddar cheese Shredded
• ¼ Cup Breadcrumbs I used wholemeal bread to make the bread crumbs
• 1 tsp Butter To grease the baking dish
• 1 tablespoons Olive oil
• Salt and black pepper To season
• ½ teaspoon Garlic powder Optional

Instructions

• Put a pan of water on to boil and cook your broccoli florets and cook your chicken breasts if you're not using pre cooked chicken
• Heat your oven to either 190c or 375f depending on your oven and grease a casserole dish with the butter to stop the bake sticking
• Add the cooked broccoli to the baking dish evenly on the bottom layer of the dish and then add the torn cooked chicken on top of the broccoli
• Pour the cheese sauce over the top in an even layer and then season with salt and pepper
• In a bowl, add the breadcrumbs, cheese, garlic powder if you're using it and olive oil and use your hands to mix the crumb topping together making sure the oil is well worked into the mixture
• Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the top of the bake and cook for 20 minutes until the top is golden and you can se the cheese sauce bubbling around the edges
• Remove from the oven and serve!

Chicken And Broccoli Bake Recipe