Name: Chicken Divan - Chicken & Broccoli Casserole
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 50 min
Ingredients: 4-6 chicken breasts; 2 cans cream of chicken soup; 1 cup mayonnaise (I use fat free and it’s just fine); 1 teaspoon curry powder; 2 teaspoons lemon juice; 1/2 teaspoon salt; fresh broccoli spears (about one large bunch, more if desired, steamed); margarine or butter; 1 large package wide egg noodles (cooked and drained)

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Chicken Divan is a fancy-sounding name for a really simple and tasty chicken casserole. Chicken and broccoli with a lemon curry sauce served over wide egg noodles. This recipe is pretty enough to be served for a dinner party but easy enough for a weeknight. The sauce is so good, I can just eat it with a spoon!

I have been making this chicken divan recipe for as long as I can remember. My Mom got the recipe from her oldest sister, my Aunt Ellen many many years ago.

It’s always been a favorite of mine, one because I love chicken so much it’s amazing that I don’t grow feathers, and two, because I love curry!! I like all kinds of curry dishes, but yellow curry dishes are my most favorite.

I love one dish recipes, don’t you?

What is Chicken Divan?

Chicken Divan was popularized in the early 20th century. The dish was invented at a popular French restaurant in the Chatham Hotel in New York City by a chef named “Lagasi.” No relation to Emeril who spells his last name “Lagasse.” (I checked, sometimes names change through the generations…).

The original recipe remains a secret that died with the chef who invented it. So this recipe, like all the other Chicken Divan recipes in the world today, approximates the original.

Essentially, Chicken Divan comes down to just a few essentials, creamy Mornay sauce, chicken, wide egg noodles, and broccoli. In this case, to keep things super simple, I make the sauce with canned Campbell’s cream of chicken soup, lemon juice, mayonnaise, and curry. This is used in place of the Mornay sauce.

What Kind Of Noodles To Use in Chicken Divan

In this case, I use wide egg noodles, the kind you buy in the package in the pasta aisle, not the thicker homemade egg noodles like I make for my homemade chicken noodle soup. They provide such a silky texture to the dish and allow plenty of creamy sauce to coat for every bite. If you don’t have ribbon noodles handy, then you can certainly get away with using other types of pasta. Fettucine noodles are not as wide, but they certainly do the trick.

What Type Of Curry Powder Is Recommended?

While chicken divan picks up a bit of pizzazz from using curry, it isn’t like you want the curry to overwhelm the rest of the dish. Then it might as well be called chicken curry casserole, right? So, with that in mind, the more mild curry powders are best. Curry comes in so many styles and has endless regional variations.

There are mild to wildly spicy curry powders, but when I make this chicken broccoli divan with curry I opt for mild yellow curry powder. It won’t take over the dish, but it will make the color nicer and help fill out the flavor.

Ingredients in Chicken Divan

Chances are you might have everything you need to for this recipe right in your pantry?

chicken breasts
cream of chicken soup
mayonnaise
curry powder
lemon juice
salt
fresh broccoli spears or broccolini
butter
wide egg noodles

Preheat the oven and prepare a 9×13 baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

In melted butter, in a frying pan, saute your chicken breasts for about 15 minutes.

Steam broccoli and boil and drain noodles. In a small bowl prepare the sauce: soup, mayo, curry, salt, and lemon juice. Combine.

*note – I have made with low fat and non-fat mayo with success, so feel free to cut the calories there if you wish. You can also cut the sodium using the Heart Healthy version of Campbell’s Cream Chicken Soup. I have used frozen broccoli with the recipe, but I prefer the fresh, as I like mine to be tender but not soft. Broccolini works really well, too.

Place noodles on the bottom of your baking dish. Cover with chicken breasts, then broccoli, then top with sauce.

Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Chicken needs to reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees with a meat thermometer.

The curry sauce covers the broccoli, chicken, and noodles, baking all of the flavors together into one scrumptious meal that you will want to make again and again.

Love it? Pin it!

Don’t fret when you can’t find this recipe when you want to make it – take care of that right now and pin it to your favorite Pinterest recipe board before you go!

Great One Dish Casserole Recipes

Casseroles might seem like an old fashioned dish, but let’s face it. Casseroles never get old! What is not to love about a meal that includes all the important food groups in every bite, cooks in one dish, and can be whipped together in minutes? We are talking pretty much the lifesavers of family mealtime when everyone is busy.

So, of course, I am a big fan of casserole dishes, from the ones I created, to those my mother and grandmother passed on to me, to the ones I just had to try. I love them all!

Here are a few I’d like to recommend:

What to serve with chicken divan?

There really isn’t any need to feel like you have to serve anything with chicken divan casserole. Everything is here – you have your protein in the chicken, your vegetable with the broccoli, and your starch with the egg noodles. I typically just make sure to have some crusty no-knead dutch oven bread or homemade ciabatta bread to mop up all of that sauce left on the plate.

Chicken Divan is also delicious served over rice, but if you are looking for something low carb, and you want to cut out the noodles, try some mashed cauliflower.

This Green Salad with Lemon Thyme Vinaigrette would make a great addition to the meal, especially for us lemon lovers that can’t get enough of that flavor!

Pineapple Pretzel Fluff is a fantastic dessert salad that would be great to nibble on after dinner.

If you cook with chicken a bunch like we do, you can take a peek at ALL of my chicken recipes right in one spot!

Let’s make this recipe for super easy chicken divan casserole with noodles, shall we?

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4.75 from 4 votes

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