Keto Chicken Broccoli Casserole
This keto chicken broccoli casserole has 48 g of protein and 8 g net carbs per serving, with a cheddar cream sauce and no rice or canned soup.
Every family I know has a casserole that shows up when the weather turns, and for a lot of houses it’s chicken and broccoli under a blanket of cheese. This keto chicken broccoli casserole is my version of that dish, bubbling at the edges with a spoon already standing in it, and it keeps everything you’d want from the original: tender chicken, broccoli that still has a bite, and a sauce that pulls off the spoon in long cheesy strings.
What it leaves out is the stuff that usually holds the dish together. No rice. No can of cream-of-something soup. No bag of crushed crackers on top. The sauce is real cream cheese, heavy cream and sharp cheddar, and the crunchy lid is Parmesan and almond flour. One serving lands at 48 grams of protein and 8 grams of net carbs, so it counts as a proper high protein chicken casserole and not just a low carb one.
Where chicken and broccoli under cheese comes from
Chicken and broccoli in a cheese sauce is an old pairing. The best-known ancestor is chicken divan, named after the Divan Parisien, a restaurant inside New York’s Chatham Hotel that served it as a signature plate early in the twentieth century. The original recipe was kept secret, and the cookbook versions that followed in the 1950s and 1960s don’t agree with each other. What people do agree on, from hints passed down by the restaurant’s maître d’, is the shape of it: poached chicken, broccoli and a cheesy sauce.
Home cooks did what home cooks always do with a restaurant idea. They made it cheaper and easier, and the divan turned into the weeknight casserole you find at potlucks and on church-supper tables, usually with rice and a can of soup to stretch it. I understand why. A one-dish dinner that feeds a crowd is a gift. I just wanted the same gift without the rice.
At our table
Casserole season is my favorite stretch of the year. From Christmas week through the long weeks of January, a lot of us are looking for the same thing: something hot, something that reheats well, something that feeds the whole house after a week of cookies and parties. My kids will fight over the last scoop of my cheesesteak casserole and never notice it’s low carb, and this is the kind of dish that wins the same way. Nobody at the table is thinking about carbs when the cheese is bubbling.
Every recipe I share gets cooked in my own kitchen first, and this one took a couple of rounds. The first lesson was water. Broccoli holds a surprising amount of it, and if you don’t drain and pat it dry after blanching, it leaks into the sauce while it bakes and you get soup. Two minutes in boiling water, then a towel, and the sauce stays thick.
How it became low carb and high protein
The classic casserole gets its carbs from three places: the rice, the canned soup thickened with flour or starch, and the buttery cracker topping. Here, the sauce thickens the way restaurant sauces do, by simmering cream and cream cheese together for a few minutes, then melting in the cheddar off the heat. No starch of any kind.
The protein comes from searing two pounds of chicken breast in cubes before it goes in the dish. Searing gives the chicken some color, and it means the meat is already cooked through before it meets the sauce, so it doesn’t turn dry and rubbery in the oven. Cut into six servings, you get 48 grams of protein, 8 grams of net carbs (11 grams of total carbs minus 3 grams of fiber) and 563 calories. That’s a real dinner, and a good one to pair with a green salad or the low carb Christmas creamed spinach.
Broccoli is doing real work here too. It’s high in fiber and vitamin C, according to Illinois Extension, which is part of why I use a full 20 ounces instead of the handful some casseroles scatter on top. If you like this kind of baked chicken dinner, my keto garlic mushroom chicken casserole is the next one to try, with a savory, earthy sauce instead of a cheesy one.
A few swaps
- Use Monterey Jack or a mild white cheddar in place of sharp cheddar for a gentler sauce.
- Swap the chicken breast for boneless thighs. They stay juicier, but the fat goes up, so the macros shift.
- Use about 4 cups of shredded rotisserie chicken and skip the searing step. Check the label, because some store chickens are seasoned with sugar.
- Frozen broccoli works if you thaw it fully and squeeze it dry in a towel first.
Make ahead, storing and reheating
You can assemble the casserole up to a day ahead, cover it and keep it in the fridge, then bake it with the topping added just before it goes in; give it 5 extra minutes if it’s going in cold. Leftovers keep in a sealed container for 3 to 4 days, and I reheat single portions in the microwave at 50 percent power so the sauce doesn’t split, finishing with a minute at full power until it’s steaming hot, 165°F all the way through. For the freezer, wrap portions well and use them within 2 to 3 months, thawing overnight in the fridge before reheating.
On safety: chicken has to reach 165°F (74°C) in the thickest piece, which is the number the CDC recommends for cooked chicken. A quick-read thermometer is the easiest way to be sure, and I check a couple of the larger cubes right before the casserole comes out of the oven.
Questions people ask
Is this keto chicken casserole really keto?
Yes. It has 8 grams of net carbs per serving, with no rice, flour, cornstarch or canned soup. The net carbs are the total carbs minus the fiber.
How do I stop a low carb chicken broccoli cheese casserole from getting watery?
Blanch the broccoli for only 2 minutes, drain it well and pat it dry. Then simmer the sauce until it coats the back of a spoon before anything goes into the dish.
Can I make this in a smaller dish?
Halve everything and bake it in an 8-inch square pan for the same time, checking the chicken at 20 minutes.
Serve it straight from the dish with a big green salad, and don’t be surprised when someone asks for seconds before the first plate is empty.
Casseroles
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