Tuscan Chicken Quinoa Casserole
Published 5/5/2020 • Updated 8/23/2022
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This Tuscan Chicken Quinoa Bake is packed with Italian flavors, kid-friendly, and has a whopping 27g protein per serving!
We are BIG fans of quinoa casseroles! We love that they are easy meals to make but are still flavor-packed and healthy. Healthy quinoa casseroles are protein packed whether they have meat in them or not.
After you add this Tuscan chicken quinoa casserole to the menu, add this healthy cashew chicken casserole and this quinoa broccoli and cheese casserole to the list, too!
What’s So Great About this Casserole
Guess what we use as the liquid in this casserole- TOMATO SOUP! That’s right, using a box or a can of your favorite tomato soup adds so much flavor to this casserole! Sure, you can still use tomato sauce and spices to add flavor if you don’t have tomato soup, but using tomato soup will seriously add the best flavor ever! The best part is that you can get creative and use regular tomato soup or tomato soup with fun flavors, too! You can use whatever your favorite tomato soup you prefer, but here are some of our favorites!- Pacific Foods Creamy Tomato Soup
- Cambells Well Yes Tomato Bisque
- Pacific Foods Tomato Basil Soup
- Imagine Creamy Tomato Soup
- Red Pepper Tomato Soup
Don’t Forget to Do THESE Things
When it comes to quinoa casseroles there are a couple steps that are very important to ensure your casserole cooks correctly and isn’t a complete mess after it bakes.- Make sure that the chicken is cut into small and equally sized pieces. You want the chicken to be the same size so that all the pieces have the same cook time.
- You also want to make sure that the chicken and quinoa are covered by liquid (see below).
- Spray your casserole dish with non-stick cooking spray before adding all of the ingredients to the dish. It will help keep the casserole dish from browning.
A Few More Things..
Whole + Healthy Ingredients
This tuscan chicken quinoa casserole is made with classic Italian ingredients with a healthy twist! Here are the ingredients you’ll need and some substitution options if you are running low on a few things!- Quinoa
- Tomato Soup (sub marinara sauce)
- Red Onion (sub white or yellow onion)
- Chicken Breast
- Italian Seasoning (sub dried basil, dried oregano, and dried parsley)
- Garlic Power (sub with fresh garlic or onion powder)
- Salt + Pepper
- Water (sub with broth for more flavor)
- Fresh Tomatoes
- Mozzarella Balls (sub shredded mozzarella)
Meal Prep + Freeze
We love using this casserole as a meal prep meal! It is super easy to prep for the week because it is easy to reheat and top with more delicious cheese! If you want to freeze this casserole, wait to add the cheese and fresh basil until after the casserole is thawed and ready to bake!
Chicken Casserole Recipes
Tuscan Chicken Quinoa Casserole
This Tuscan Chicken Quinoa Bake is packed with Italian flavors, kid-friendly, and has a whopping 27g protein per serving!
Ingredients
- 1.5 cup uncooked quinoa
- 1/2 medium red onion, finely diced
- 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- 3 cups creamy tomato soup, We used the Imagine brand*
- 1 cup water*
- 4 medium-sized tomatoes, sliced into rounds
- 4 oz. pearled Mozzarella balls
- 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
- optional drizzle: aged balsamic/balsamic reduction
Instructions
- First, preheat oven to 375ºF and spray a casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray.
- Next place 1.5 cups uncooked quinoa on the bottom of the casserole dish.
- Then, finely dice onion and cut chicken breast into bite-sized pieces. Transfer into casserole dish.
- Season chicken with minced garlic, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
- Next, mix together around 3 cups of tomato soup with 1 cup of water. If you buy tomato soup in a carton, you will get anywhere from 3-4 cups of tomato soup, so you can use all of the soup, but substitute the rest with water.
- Pour soup mixture on top of chicken and quinoa and use a spoon to mix, making sure that the chicken and quinoa are submerged.
- Cover casserole dish with tin foil and bake at 375ºF for 30 minutes.
- While the casserole is baking, slice 5-6 medium tomatoes.
- Once the 30 minutes is up, remove the casserole from the oven and stir. Add sliced tomatoes and bake for an additional 20 minutes, uncovered.
- Finally, remove casserole one more time, add mozzarella cheese and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
- Remove casserole dish from oven and let sit for 10 additional minutes to thicken.
- Serve with fresh basil.
Tips & Notes
- This recipe was upated on April 8, 2020. The original recipe can be found HERE. The reason this recipe was updarted was to increase the serving size to 6 so that no soup is wasted. We also simplfied this recipe to remove the “saute” step so that it is much easier to make.
- water/soup: each soup container will have anywhere from 3 to 4 cups of soup in it. Ours had 3.5 cups soup, so we only used about 1/2 cup of water. The goal is to get 4 cups of liquid between the soup and water.
Nutrition
Calories: 336 kcal, Carbohydrates: 39 g, Protein: 27 g, Fat: 8 g, Fiber: 4 g, Sugar: 4 g
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Hi there! Just a heads up that in the new recipe, Basil is mentioned in the steps but not in the ingredient list. I LOVE this recipe and I’m making it today for like the 14th time 🙂
TYSM! Updating right now!
What size dish should you use for this recipe?
You can use a standard baking dish!
Saw this in a recent Instagram story and knew I needed to try it out. I’m so glad I did because prep was so easy and it was so delicious! I had a smaller pan, so ended up baking an additional 15 minutes on top of suggested cook time to get the quinoa fully cooked. Thanks Lee & team!
Glad you loved it!!
I abouskty loved this recipe! It was one of the first that I’ve made from Fitfoodie and I couldn’t believe how good it was! It tasted exactly like a Margarita Pizza. I took off the basil, and I would probably not add it next time. Telling all my friends about it recipe!
It’s one of my favorites too!!
Made this for my family tonight and we all loved it! So yummy 🙂 I will definitely be making this again!
One of my favorite dinners!
I don’t have quinoa on hand, but this looks so good.. could I use rice or frozen cauliflower rice instead? Would I still be able to add it raw?
Hi! I haven’t tried this recipe with any other grain so I can’t say!
I subbed chicken for tofu to make this vegetarian, and it was awesome! Could ditch the mozzarella to make it vegan, too, if needed (I’m not vegetarian or vegan, but like to go plant based when possible). May need to experiment a little more with the cook time, but overall it turned out pretty good, baking everything for 35 minutes.
Love your subs <3
Hi Lee and team .
I love this recipe and normally sub kangaroo for chicken because I don’t eat chicken. When I looked up the recipe today to check measurements a recipe which looks like yours popped up at this address
https://gethealthyu.com/recipe/tuscan-chicken-quinoa-bake/
I can’t figure out a way to contact you other then a comment but thought you might be interested to know. (And if they are stealing your recipe I think it’s jerky)
Hi Romy! We have a partnership with Get Healthy U, so it’s all good!! <3
Have eaten quinoa and like. This recipe looks good, but what is EVOO in the recipe?
olive oil!
Could you leave mozza out to be dairy free? Or other ideas to sub?
You could totally leave it out! The only sub I can think of is a non-dairy cheese.
Little late to the game, but I do a ricotta sub for lasagna by throwing silken tofu in a food processor with lemon juice (one lemon per pack of tofu). Not mozz-like, but I think it would work for this, and even my non tofu eating friends enjoy it. (Roommate’s girlfriend doesn’t like the taste of meat or cheese, so I’ve had to come up with ways to make subs that are crowd pleasers.)
you say that the recipe has 40g protein per serving
but the nutrition on the recipe says 28g
also would this work with just some canned or crushed tomatoes and more spices? I know you made it with a product partner in mind but I’d like to use pantry items if possible.
The 40g was a typo! Just fixed it! I have never tried it with canned or crushed tomatoes, but if anything I’d go pureed. You’re going to want to stay as close as possible to the texture of soup!