Cajun Dirty Rice Casserole

I first found this recipe by myself on Facebook.  We went on our annual trip to visit my Aunt Patti and Uncle Bruce in Florida, and this was the first meal we had! Honestly, for me anyways, was better than I expected it to be. We made it a little bit different this time around, but not too much different.  We did not add shrimp, which we had done the first time, and I baked it with the crunch onions on top! I will warn you ahead of time, it is kind of a salty dish. Between the sausage, rice mix, cream of chicken soup and cheese it might be a little over the top.  Of course, you could eliminate the sausage to lower the sodium level, but that’s totally up to you!  So as always, if you do make this, let me know your thoughts, things you’d change or what you did differently!

Cajun Dirt Rice Casserole:

Ingredients:

·         1 – (8oz) box Zatarain’s Dirty Rice

·         1 lb smoked sausage, chopped. 

·         2 cups chopped, cooked chicken

·         1 (10.5oz) can of Cream of Chicken Soup.

·         1 cup sour cream

·         1 cup shredded Parmesan Cheese.

·         1 (2.8oz) can French Fried Onion

Directions:

1.      Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray a 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray. 

2.      In a skillet, heat up a tablespoon of oil and cook your chicken.  Remove from the pot and set aside. 

3.      In that skillet, cook your sausage until starting to brown.  Add in the Dirty Rice mix and water called for on the package.  Prepare Dirty Rice according to package directions. 

4.     Remove the Dirty Rice and Sausage from the heat.  Stir in the cooked chicken, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, and parmesan cheese.

5.    Spread mixture into prepared baking dish and top with the French-fried onions.

6.     Bake uncovered for 30 minutes, until bubbly.

Tips:

·         I used Andouille Sausage in this recipe instead of smoked sausage. You can also add Shrimp if you’d like. We had it the first time around and it was good!

·         If you can find the low sodium Cream of Chicken soup, I recommend using that.  I know that Zatarain’s also makes some of their products in low sodium as well, but I was not able to find it in the store.

·         You can cook the chicken and sausage together, it cooks at the same time, and eliminates the extra oil needed when cooking the Dirty Rice mix according to the package.

·         I used my enameled Cast Iron pot for this recipe. It turned out just as good as we did the first time we made it, and it’s a one pot meal! The less dishes the better!

·         We served it with sour cream on top as well. Just a preference for us but it helped cut the sodium!

Heres the link for the original recipe😉

Cajun Dirty Rice Casserole