Name: Chicken Chow Mein Hotdish Recipe
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon olive oil; 1 pound chicken breast, roughly chopped; ½ cup onions, chopped; ½ cup celery, chopped; 1 can chicken rice soup; 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup; ½ can water; 2 cups Dried Chow Mein Noodles

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A Classic Upper Midwest recipe right here. Comfort food all the way. This Chicken Chow Mein Hotdish Recipe is sure to make your family happy and maybe give you a glimpse into what they thought Chinese food sort-of kind-of is, but suburban Minnesota style. It really is tasty and you should give it a try!

Single serving of Chow Mein Hotdish in a grey bowl.

While we are in the midst of our hotdish series, I wanted to share another common hotdish recipe that is made throughout the Midwest. We have already made the first hotdish recipe, a from scratch hotdish, and now we are going to make a chicken chow mein hotdish.

Why Chicken Chow Mein?

We have made plenty of ground beef versions of a hotdish and the dish is just much more versatile than this. As we talked about in our post that defines hotdish, a defining component is a protein. That doesn’t need to be hamburger and can absolutely be chicken. That is what we are going to do!

Inspired By A Church Cookbook

Well, I already knew that this is a pretty common hotdish to make, but I did not have an exact recipe. I mean, the just of it is pretty simple… cream o’ stuff soups, chicken, rice, chow mein noodles. To zero in on the recipe I wanted to feature, I pulled out the ol’ 1984 Our Savior’s Lutheran Church cookbook (75th Anniversary Edition). This cookbook is from Colfax, ND and where my father-in-law was born and raised. He also lived there with his wife until they moved to Fargo in the 80s. In fact, the cookbook has a recipe from my mother-in-law printed in it! She is church famous!

So, there is a hamburger chow mein hotdish in this cookbook that I used as my inspiration for my chicken chow mein hotdish. The original recipe uses hamburger and I already decided that was going to be changed out. Also, I am going to change up the amounts of the veggies.

Is This Chicken Chow Mein Recipe a Hotdish?

Well, as we defined previously, to be a hotdish, the ingredients must meet some criteria:

Cream of something soup OR, less commonly, you may see a tomato base
Some kind of protein, with hamburger being the most common.
Vegetables, but they should be sized to fit into a single bite
A starch, generally pasta or potato. Also, sized to fit into a single bite
A crispy topping. Tots, chips, or even chow mein noodles.
Optionally, cheese

Our chicken chow mein recipe definitely meets all of these criteria. There is starch in both the rice and the chow mein topping. It has the soup, the veggies, and a crispy topping. Like a casserole, it is cooked in one dish.

After having developed this recipe, I can say that I really like it! This is one tasty hotdish.

Chicken being cooked in a red and black caste iron pan.

Chicken chow mein pre-baked stuff without chow mein noodles.

Finished chicken chow mein in a white casserole dish.

Is this Asian food?

No.

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