Macaroni Chicken Casserole

The world is on fire. Not just the virus — the streets. George Floyd. Minneapolis. The protests spreading across the country like a wave, and I sit in my kitchen in Savannah and I watch the news and I feel things I have felt my entire life — the anger, the grief, the exhaustion of being Black in America, the way injustice cycles back around like a season that never ends.

I am seventy — no, sixty-four. I was born in 1955 in a shotgun house on the east side of Savannah. I went to a segregated school. I was one of the first Black students at Sol C. Johnson High School after desegregation, and I was called names that I will not write down because they don't deserve the ink. My father worked the docks until his body broke. My mother cleaned white people's houses and brought home their cast-off clothes. I know what this country is. I have always known.

But I also know what this country can be. I know because I fed four hundred children a day — Black children, white children, brown children — in the same cafeteria, at the same tables, eating the same food from the same hands. I know because my granddaughter is a nurse saving lives regardless of what those lives look like. I know because Derek, a Black boy from a poor family in Savannah, is now a chef in Charleston, feeding people food that carries the history of the Gullah-Geechee in every grain of rice.

I don't have answers, baby. I have a kitchen. I have a skillet. I have the belief that feeding people — all people, without conditions, without hesitation — is the smallest and most radical act of love. You cannot hate someone you've fed. You cannot dehumanize someone who made you dinner. The table is the one place where we are all equal, because hunger is universal and so is the relief of being full.

I made chicken and dumplings tonight. Comfort food for a world that needs comforting. The dumplings floated in the broth like little lifeboats, and I thought: that's what food is. A lifeboat. In any storm. For anyone.

Now go on and feed somebody.

I didn’t have dumplings in the house that night — I had macaroni, and I had chicken I’d pulled from the bone, and I had the same intention: make something that holds people together. This casserole is what came out of it, and I’ve been making some version of it for forty years, in good times and in terrible ones. It’s the kind of dish that fills a kitchen with warmth before you’ve even taken it out of the oven — and that warmth, right now, feels like the most useful thing I have to offer.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cups elbow macaroni, uncooked
2 cups cooked chicken, shredded or roughly diced
1 can (10.5 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced
1/2 cup celery, finely diced
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside.
Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the elbow macaroni according to package directions until just al dente — about 7 minutes. Drain well and set aside.
Soften the vegetables. In a skillet over medium heat, cook the diced onion and celery with a small drizzle of oil for 4–5 minutes, until softened and the onion is translucent. Remove from heat.
Make the sauce. In a large bowl, whisk together the cream of chicken soup, chicken broth, and sour cream until smooth. Stir in the garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
Combine. Add the cooked macaroni, shredded chicken, softened vegetables, and 1 cup of the shredded cheddar to the sauce. Stir gently until everything is evenly coated. Pour into the prepared baking dish and spread into an even layer.
Top the casserole. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of cheddar over the top. In a small bowl, mix the breadcrumbs with the melted butter, then scatter evenly over the cheese.
Bake. Bake uncovered for 30–35 minutes, until the casserole is bubbling at the edges and the breadcrumb topping is golden brown. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Macaroni Chicken Casserole — A Lifeboat in Any Storm