King Ranch Chicken Casserole Recipe

Y'all, this is the best dinner ever for those busy weeknights and the days when you have more month than paycheck! It's creamy and full of gooey cheese - tastes kind of like chicken enchiladas but SO much easier.

Next time try this classic creamy chicken spaghetti with Rotel!

Jump to:

• ❤️ Why you'll love it
• 🧾 Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 🥄 Equipment
• 🎥 Video
• 🥫 Storage
• 💭 Tips
• 👩‍🍳 FAQs
• 🥄 Cook along!
• 🍽️ Serve with...
• 📚 Related recipes
• 📞 The last word
• 📖 Recipe
• The last last word
• 💬 Comments

❤️ Why you'll love it

• Less than 10 minutes of prep time!
• Family friendly comfort food for over 70 years!
• Assemble it ahead, make it ahead, freeze it... this Tex-Mex casserole can handle it all!

There are a lot of versions of the classic King Ranch chicken casserole recipe but the original is quick, easy, and has stood the test of time.

Chicken, Rotel tomatoes with chiles, and onion are mixed with a creamy, rich sauce and layered in a casserole dish with corn tortillas and a generous amount of cheese.

This Tex-Mex casserole freezes well, travels well, and disappears fast whether it's on the family table or at a potluck - you can't really ask for more than that.

🧾 Ingredients

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• chicken breast (cooked, leftover chicken, or rotisserie chicken)
• butter
• yellow onion
• red or green bell pepper (or both)
• Rotel tomatoes
• cream of chicken soup
• cream of mushroom soup
• corn tortillas
• Cheddar cheese

🔪 Instructions

1. Preheat oven and prepare a baking dish according to instructions in recipe card below. In a large skillet saute onion and bell pepper in butter.
2. Remove from heat and stir in soups, Rotel, and chicken.
3. Layer with the cut up tortillas, chicken mixture, and cheese. Repeat layers.
4. Bake. Top with a little fresh cilantro before serving.

Slow cooker instructions

Yes! You can make this King Ranch Chicken recipe in a slow cooker! It's just as yummy with layers of corn tortillas, gooey cheese, and creamy chicken filling!

1. Spray the inside of the crockpot with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Mix the soups, rotel, veggies, and cooked chicken.
3. Layer the tortillas, soup mixture, and cheese in the crock pot.
4. Set on low for 4 hours. Uncover the last 30 minutes of cooking time.

🥄 Equipment

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You'll need the following items to make this recipe successfully.

• 7 x 11 casserole dish
• large iron skillet

🎥 Video

Click on the image to watch me make this easy meal from start to finish with extra tips! (Video opens in a new tab).

🥫 Storage

You can assemble this a day or two ahead of time and bake when you're ready.

Let the leftovers come to room temperature and then cover with plastic wrap or put in an airtight container and refrigerate promptly. They'll be fine for 4 or 5 days.

Freeze for longer storage.

To freeze

Casseroles like this King Ranch chicken are a life saver for busy people. I like to make a double batch and freeze one for those times when my life is spinning out of control OR someone from church needs dinner.

Let cool to room temperature. Wrap the casserole dish in plastic wrap then in aluminum foil and freeze.

You can freeze this for up to 6 months with no problem and, full disclosure, I once found one in the freezer that was over a year old and it tasted fine.

To thaw- let thaw overnight in the refrigerator, remove aluminum foil and plastic wrap, and bake according to instructions.

💭 Tips

Expert Tip: Give the aluminum foil a good spray with nonstick cooking spray before covering the casserole. It will keep the melty cheese from sticking.

• Use reduced sodium soups to lower sodium in this recipe if you need to. It will still taste great.
• Save time by using shredded chicken or rotisserie chicken.
• Try frozen green bell peppers or the diced bell peppers and onions in the produce section of the store.
• Assemble this on Sunday night and keep it in the refrigerator. You'll just need to pop it in the oven for a quick meal on the busiest weeknight. Better yet double the recipe and freeze one for another time.
• Manufacturer's have downsized! I've had to downsize the size of the pans - if you've been making this recipe for awhile you may notice that the pan is smaller.

👩‍🍳 FAQs

🥄 Cook along!

Easily follow along on your phone.

🍽️ Serve with...

Looking for what to serve with King Ranch casserole? I've got you!

• Salad
• Tortilla chips and honeydew salsa
• Cowboy caviar
• Southern green beans (leave out the potatoes - there's enough carbs!)
• Texas sheet cake
• White Texas sheet cake
• Pecan pie with cinnamon ice cream
• Mmmm.... Ranch style beans - straight out of the can and warmed up... Just like mom used to make.

📚 Related recipes

Here are some more of my favorite comfort food casserole recipes!

📞 The last word

King Ranch chicken with Rotel is absolutely the ultimate comfort food! It's not too spicy nor too bland.

It's so easy to make  - you can even make it ahead of time. Book mark this recipe - it's right up there with smothered chicken on the yum scale!

This is a 1950s Junior League kind of recipe. I don't think anyone knows where it got started but it's a classic type of mid-century casserole like the ever popular Monterey Chicken.

Definitely the kind I grew up on. You have to kind of miss those days when it was fine to eat a ton of sodium and fat.

No one ever looked down on my mom because she made a casserole with ingredients out of a can. Cooking in the 1950s and 60s was a quick and easy kind of thing.

If you have time read on below the recipe to find out my concerns about the "Pinterest Perfect Personality Disorder" we've created in our modern society.

If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need. Don't forget that you can click on "add to collection" to save it to your own, private recipe box!

If you love this recipe please give it 5 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📖 Recipe

The last last word

So I often steer clear of canned, condensed soups - at least I used to. I felt like any recipe was better with homemade sauce.

Not always true.

Not always do-able. I don't care what anyone says.

I do make this King Ranch chicken with a homemade sauce and a few substitutions from time to time but, to be perfectly honest, my family eats the original version better than anything else I've come up with.

Either I've failed as a food blogger mom OR the original version is just that yummy. You can decide for yourself.

I originally posted this recipe in 2008 but when I was searching through the blog posts I couldn't find it anywhere. I have no idea what happened to it but I thought I'd better add it back on the blog.

As a food writer I feel like I have a certain responsibility to inspire y'all to make amazing food with fresh ingredients.

I'd be a liar if I said that I never used convenience foods. Even boxed mac and cheese sometimes, y'all - oh the horror!

Social media has created a generation of women who constantly feel judged for how they parent, how they clean their homes, how they dress, and how they cook.

That's not even a complete list of things we are judged on. When you are a food writer you can add several categories to that list.

Most food bloggers have a tough time admitting that sometimes the recipes are puke-worthy rather than drool-worthy.

Sometimes I glance furtively around at the grocery store hoping that no one who "knows" me sees me buying corn dogs.

I've considered wearing a trench coat and   pair of the fake glasses with the nose and moustache (mustache, moustache - both correct) on shopping days.

My kids eat sugary cereals and pop tarts. All but one prefers boxed mac and cheese to homemade AND they'd often rather eat at Whataburger than one of my homecooked meals.

I used to fight it but I finally realized that I don't have to impress anyone with my clean eating habits, my cooking skills, or my menu.

Somedays I have client work that keeps me so busy that I'm thrilled for them to be able to microwave a couple of corn dogs and open a can of green beans.

That, my friends, is reality.

The images that I put on the blog are carefully arranged to look fantastic - or as fantastic as I can make it look.

The food I put in front of my family rarely gets plated like that. Like you, we're a busy group of people and I'm tired of trying to be Pinterest perfect.

I am saying all this to say that I hope when you read Restless Chipotle that you don't feel like the recipes are something you have to live up to. I hope that you see them as every day comfort food that fits your lifestyle... that you can make fit your lifestyle.

I hope you are comfortable substituting canned soup for a sauce when you just don't have time to make it from scratch. And I hope you never feel diminished because of it.

Please don't tell anyone - I'm still struggling with the Pinterest Perfect Personality Disorder.

Very Last Last Word - I Promise

First published November 2008. Last updated September 7, 2021 for better images and to update recipe information and pan sizes.