Healthy Harvest Chicken Casserole

Healthy Harvest Chicken Casserole is a comforting and nutritious dish that combines tender, lean chicken with an array of colorful vegetables, wild rice, and a light, creamy honey mustard sauce.

This casserole recipe was inspired by a salad I had a few years ago up in Park City, UT. I haven’t been able to get the flavors out of my head since, so I converted it into a casserole and I’m obsessed!

This hearty casserole offers a wholesome balance of flavors, from the savory chicken to the sweetness of seasonal vegetables. Perfectly baked to golden perfection, it’s a satisfying meal that the whole family will enjoy!

Ingredients for Healthy Harvest Chicken Casserole

There is nothing complicated about the ingredients for this healthy chicken recipe. You’ll need a few seasonal vegetables and some seasonings. Here is everything you’ll need:

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil: used to sauté the potatoes and vegetables
• Sweet Potatoes: adds heartiness and a touch of sweetness to the dish
• Brussels Sprouts: If you aren’t a brussel sprouts fan, use broccoli instead.
• Red Onion: adds flavor
• Garlic: adds flavor
• Chicken Broth: helps cook all the vegetables and chicken completely
• Seasonings: Dried Thyme, Cumin, Smoked Paprika, Kosher Salt and Pepper
• Chicken Breasts: use boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Honey Mustard Dressing: adds flavor, moisture
• Wild Rice: I love the flavor of wild rice with the recipe, but you can use any type of rice you like.
• Toppings: Sliced Almonds, Pepitas and Dried Cranberries (all optional but I love the texture and flavors they add)

The measurements for each ingredient can be found in the recipe card at the end of the post.

How to Make Harvest Chicken Casserole

This delicious casserole is packed with protein and healthy vegetables, making it the perfect meal for a cozy night in. Here are the steps for making it…

1. Prep: Preheat the oven to 350℉.
2. Sauté: Heat a large skillet or dutch oven over medium-high heat then add the oil. Add the sweet potatoes, brussels and red onion and season them with salt and pepper. Sauté for about 5 minutes and then reduce the heat to medium. Once everything starts browning, add the garlic and cookie it for 30 seconds.
3. Cook the Vegetables: Add half of the chicken and all the seasonings and stir everything together. Cover the pot and cook for 5 minutes then place in a casserole dish.
4. Cook the Chicken: Return the heat to medium-high, add a little oil to the

Easy Ground Beef Vegetable Soup

This Easy Ground Beef Vegetable Soup, or commonly called Hamburger Soup, is the perfect easy soup recipe for a busy day. Our 30 minute soup recipe is a flavorful ground beef based soup loaded with vegetables, lean ground beef, diced tomatoes and potatoes. It’s a one-pot dinner that makes it an easy cozy soup recipe!

Hamburger Soup is a quick and easy ground beef recipe, but don’t worry, as simple as it is to make, it’s still packed with flavor. And best of all, it hits 5 major wins:

1. It’s great made ahead of time
2. Totally budget friendly
3. A one pot meal
4. Reheats well, even better than day 1
5. AND freezes perfectly!

Mom’s Wisdom

One of the first things I learned when I got married was that my mom’s budget-food recipes she sent me off to college with were exactly what I needed as a busy newlywed as well. Easy beef vegetable soup is a filling and inexpensive recipe that makes life so much easier when you’re trying to get dinner on the table.

Mom taught me that homemade soups are super easy to throw together and they’re much tastier than store-bought canned soup, plus healthier too. I like to make a double batch so I can eat one and freeze one!

Ingredients for Ground Beef and Vegetable Soup

• Olive Oil: Used to sauté the onion, garlic, and veggies. It adds flavor and helps everything soften before the broth goes in.
• White Onion: Builds the savory flavor base for the soup. Onions add natural sweetness and depth.
• Ground Beef: The hearty protein that makes this soup filling and comforting. Browning it first adds rich flavor. We use 90/10.
• Garlic: Adds aromatic depth and classic savory notes that round out the broth.
• Carrots: Add sweetness, color, and texture while bringing natural balance to the savory beef.
• Celery: Contributes a mild, earthy flavor that pairs with onion and

Fall Chicken Stew with Quinoa and Butternut Squash

This “New American Heartland” fall chicken stew recipe is bulked up with quinoa and butternut squash. The dish is hearty and filling, and a perfect fall or winter dinner recipe.

When the cold weather sets in, I always want to make cozy, warm comfort food, but those are often not the most healthy recipes (i.e. beef stew, I love you forever, but you’re not healthy haha!). This seasonal dish is healthy, full of vegetables, protein and nutritious grains and it will warm you up from the inside out.

I’m making a loaf of easy herbed focaccia bread to dip in this scrumptious fall chicken stew!

What Do I Need to Make Fall Chicken Stew?

You’ve heard of kitchen sink cookies, and I seriously thought about naming this kitchen sink stew because you seriously add almost everything but the kitchen sink! Ha! But kitchen sink stew doesn’t sound appetizing at all. Here are the ingredients you will need:

• Chicken Broth
• Rotisserie Chicken: I like to use rotisserie chicken just to keep things quick and simple, but you can definitely cook your own chicken if you want. Grilled chicken breasts or left over roasted chicken would work great. I prefer to include for chicken breast and chicken thigh meat if I can for the most flavor.
• Vegetables and Herbs: Butternut Squash, Yellow Onion, Diced Tomatoes, Kale, and Flat-Leaf Parsley
• Flavor, Seasonings & Spices: Garlic, Kosher Salt, Dried Oregano, Ground Cumin, Nutmeg, Orange Zest and Black Pepper
• Grains: Quinoa (Trader Joe’s Harvest Grains Blend)
• Olive Oil

The measurements for all the ingredients can be found in the recipe card down below. Keep scrolling for all the details!

Substitutions and Variations

One of the things I love about stew recipes is how customizable they are! This recipe is perfect for adding to or swapping out. Here are a few ideas:

• You can add cubed potatoes (red potatoes or yukon gold) or sweet potatoes or swap them for the butternut squash.
• Use couscous or orzo instead of the quinoa.
• If you aren’t a kale fan, try spinach instead!
• Of course the veggies are totally up to you – peas, carrots, celery, etc.
• If you want to make this stew vegetarian, omit the chicken and use vegetable broth instead of chicken stock.

How to Make This Chicken Stew Recipe

To get the depth of flavor you crave in a good stew, it takes a couple of steps starting with r

Crock Pot or Instant Pot Cheesy Meatball Soup [+Video]

A creamy soup is turned into a crock pot or instant pot cheesy meatball soup with just a few pantry staple ingredients like carrots, potatoes, garlic, and corn, then add the cheese!

This year we are making sure we are on top of slow cooker and instant pot meals in case you’re freezing and not feeling like slaving over a stove like we are.

I’m going to include instructions for cooking this meatball soup recipe on the stove top as well.

Ingredients for Creamy Meatball Soup

I love a good hearty soup full of veggies, meatballs and cheese! This easy soup recipe checks all the boxes. Here is what you will need…

• Meatballs: We just buy a package at the store to keep it easy, but you can make meatballs at home if you want.
• Butter: used to sauté the veggies
• Vegetables: garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes and corn
• Soup Base: beef broth, whole milk, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco
• Salt: adds flavor
• Cornstarch: thickens the soup
• Cheeses: sharp cheddar and Monterey Jack

The measurements for all the ingredients can be found in the recipe card at the end of this post. You can also save and print the recipe there.

How to Make Cheesy Meatball Soup – Slow Cooker

While you can totally just dump this all in a crock pot and wait 8 hours to build the right texture and flavor it’s not the way I do it.

I know, you don’t want to dirty another pan, but it’s quick and easy and the flavor will be worth it.

1. Heat a dutch oven or large skillet over medium high heat and add the butter. Once it’s melted add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally until tender, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the carrots, celery and garlic and cook for another 3 minutes.
3. Throw in your frozen meatballs (unless you really want to go through the work of cooking homemade) just to get all of that flavor browning on them.
4. Dump everything but the cornstarch and cheese into a slow cooker and put it on low for 6 hours or high for 3.
5. Right before serving, combine the cheese and cornstarch in a separate bowl and then mix to combine.
6. Add the cheese mixture to the soup and stir until the cheese is melted and the soup has thickened.
7. Serve with a sprinkle of fresh parsley for garnish and a good hearty bread!

Watch How This Cheesy Meatball Soup is Made…

Easy Apple Dumplings with Sprite

Who knew that crescent rolls, cinnamon sugar apples, brown sugar, butter and sprite could make the best easy apple dumplings with Sprite ever!

Ditch your old apple dumplings recipe. Do it. Ditch it. These easy apple dumplings have a couple of very minor changes that make a HUGE difference and I’m totally not kidding. I’ll never make another apple dumplings recipe again.

This recipe reminds me so much of my grandma’s apple rolls recipe just because that sugar liquid is so deceiving. You pour it all around the rolls and it almost puts you into a panic attack seeing all of that liquid around the dough, like is this really going to work?! Are they going to be a soggy mess?!

And then those golden, crisp, pillows of dough come out and you’re a real life hero to the whole family.

Creating This Apple Dumpling Recipe

This is seriously the craziest apple dessert recipe. Most apple desserts seem to be inspired largely from the way apple pie is made. Think about it: apple crisp, apple pull-apart bread, and apple pie scones are all takes on the classic apple pie. 

This apple dumpling recipe is similar, but as I’ve been making recipes from others over the years I felt like there was always something missing. Sure, it is a good recipe and one that your guests will love you for, but couldn’t it be taken up a notch without changing the whole recipe?

We started experimenting, a lot. Too much. I could hardly stand to look at another apple dumpling recipe, let alone the apple dumpling itself.

And then it hit me, when you’re trying to do something awesome and it’s not coming together, go back to the original recipe.

So I did. And do you know what I discovered? The apples were not like an apple pie, they were completely plain. No, no, no! Apples need a little cinnamon sugar action to really drive home that fall smell and flavor!

Well don’t stop there, I thought. We need a little cinnamon action in the butter mixture as well. Too many recipes called for just butter and brown sugar. No. We need more. We added vanilla and cinnamon. Let’s get this party started!