Museum of Appalachia Casserole–chicken and elbow macaroni in a creamy sauce with a cracker crumb topping. Made easy with your Instant Pot!
Museum of Appalachia Casserole
Today’s recipe is good old fashioned southern comfort food. With cream, cream cheese and sour cream the sauce surrounding the pasta is creamy and decadent. The green chiles were something I threw in last minute but really helped to cut through the creaminess and add a bit of acidity and kick. The bites of chicken are moist and tender. Try this as a side dish or a main dish and enjoy!
This recipe is adapted from a dish served at the museum that’s called Chicken on the Ritz.
Ingredients/Substitution Ideas
- Chicken broth–or water and Better than Bouillon chicken base
- Elbow macaroni–or penne, cavatappi
- Boneless skinless chicken thighs–I used these because they stay moist and tender but you can also use breasts
- Cream cheese
- Sour cream
- Heavy cream–or evaporated milk
- Kosher salt
- Black pepper
- Onion powder
- Garlic powder
- Poultry seasoning
- Smoked paprika
- Mild diced green chiles
- Ritz crackers
- Butter
Steps
Pour broth into Instant Pot. Sprinkle in the macaroni. Place the chicken on top of the pasta.
Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 4 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 10 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.
Stir in the cream cheese, sour cream, cream, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, poultry seasoning, smoked paprika and green chiles.
You can serve as is or you can finish it off with a crispy Ritz topping in oven.
To make the Ritz topping crush up the crackers into crumbs and then stir the melted butter into the crumbs. Sprinkle on top of the pasta and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. I transferred my pasta to a square baking dish but you can also do this part straight in the stainless steel liner. It is oven safe.
Notes/Tips
- Serve with some collard greens, spinach salad or roasted vegetables.
- I used my 6 quart Instant Pot*. You can also make this in a 3 or 8 quart pot.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container* in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Other recipes you can make with poultry seasoning are Engagement Chicken and Tim’s Chicken and Dumplings.
- Try adding some vegetables into the dish. Saute a half cup of diced celery and onion in 2 tablespoons of butter using the saute setting. Do this before step 1. Alternately, you can stir in some cooked peas, broccoli or cauliflower after the dish has pressure cooked.
- The original recipe can be found here.
Did you know you can filter the recipes on my website to search by meat type, IP or Crockpot, low carb, gluten free, etc.? Use the filter to find exactly what you are looking for.
Museum of Appalachia Casserole
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Description
Chicken and elbow macaroni in a creamy sauce with a cracker crumb topping. Made easy with your Instant Pot!
Ingredients
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 8 ounces elbow macaroni
- 20 ounces boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite size pieces
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup heavy cream or evaporated milk
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
- Pinch of smoked paprika
- 1 (4 oz) can mild diced green chiles
- 20 Ritz crackers
- 3 Tbsp melted butter
Instructions
- Pour broth into Instant Pot. Sprinkle in the macaroni. Place the chicken on top of the pasta.
- Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 4 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 10 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.
- Stir in the cream cheese, sour cream, cream, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, poultry seasoning, smoked paprika and green chiles.
- You can serve as is or you can finish it off with a crispy Ritz topping in oven. To make the Ritz topping crush up the crackers into crumbs and then stir the melted butter into the crumbs. Sprinkle on top of the pasta and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. I transferred my pasta to a square baking dish but you can also do this part straight in the stainless steel liner. It is oven safe.
Notes
Try adding some vegetables into the dish. Saute a half cup of diced celery and onion in 2 tablespoons of butter using the saute setting. Do this before step 1. Alternately, you can stir in some cooked peas, broccoli or cauliflower after the dish has pressure cooked.
- Category: Chicken
- Method: Instant Pot
More Instant Pot recipes with Ritz crackers…
Air Fryer Heavenly Chicken
Sour cream coated chicken rolled in Ritz cracker crumbs and then cooked and crisped in an air fryer.
Amish Cheat Casserole
An easy Instant Pot recipe for chicken gravy with rice topped with a bit of cheddar and a Ritz cracker topping.
Instant Pot Ritz Chicken
Creamy sauce and chicken with a buttery, crumbly Ritz cracker topping. This chicken tastes great served over rice and is fast and easy to make for any day of the week.
Instant Pot Million Dollar Potato Casserole
The fastest potato casserole ever! No peeling or chopping! And with cream cheese, cheddar and a Ritz cracker topping it tastes like a million bucks.
*Karen Petersen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Instead of the oven, I can use the “air crisp topper” right?
Would it still be 20 minutes?
Thanks Karen
yes you can do that…and I don’t think it will be that long. Since the air fryer is so close it seems to cook in less than half the time as the oven.
Thank you
Be back with 5 stars! 😉
Hi
I would love to make this. It sounds so good is there any other way instead of an instant pot? Since I don’t have 1. Maybe Santa will be nice to me & get me one for Christmas!
Thanks
Greg
I hope Santa brings you one! Here’s how I would make on the stove:
1. Cook macaroni according to package directions and drain.
2. In a large pan heat up a tablespoon of oil. Cook the chicken through.
3. Pour in the macaroni. Stir in the cream cheese, sour cream, cream, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, poultry seasoning, smoked paprika and green chiles. Transfer to a baking dish.
4. To make the Ritz topping crush up the crackers into crumbs and then stir the melted butter into the crumbs. Sprinkle on top of the pasta and bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
Hi Karen,
I don’t know if you are interested in this, but you can add the degree symbol with any font by holding down the ALT key and punching in 1986 on the numeric keyboard (while holding the ALT key down). You can use the keyboard on top of the letters or the one on the right side of the keyboard. º is what it will look like.
Neither the font nor the font size matter when you use it because it resizes itself.
Thanks for all of your recipes and hard work! I’ve been following you for a long time and appreciate you very much.
Thanks! I tried this today and it worked.
Betty’s instruction doesn’t work on a Mac. To get the degree symbol using a Macintosh computer, hold down the Shift and Option keys, and press the number 8. °