Chicken Rice-a-Roni. Gotta love that stuff. ‘Cept I hate buying packaged items and especially hate buying packaged items that have unknown ingredients and additives in them. We haven’t eaten it in a long time, mostly because of the additives thing I have going on in my head.  And it’s high sodium, too.  Grosses me out.

Anyway, tonight’s dinner was grilled chicken and I was craving Rice-a-Roni something awful.  I had to have it.  But I didn’t have any on hand (no surprise).

So I Googled “Homemade Rice-A-Roni” and found this recipe from the stolenmomentscooking.com blog.  It is perfect!!  What a match- so amazingly similar yet better!  

And now that I know how easy it is to make (and you can even premix it all dry and store it in your pantry)…..this will be eaten much more frequently and I look forward to coming up with variations to suit our dinner needs.

Chicken Rice-A-Roni
from StolenMomentsCooking.com

  • 1/4 lb. spaghetti, angel hair or vermicelli pasta
  • 1 c. rice
  • 3 chicken bullion cubes, crushed -or- 3 t. chicken stock base
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 1/2 t. black pepper
  • 1/4 t. Italian seasoning
  • 1/4 t. paprika
  • 4 T. butter
  • 2 c. water

Make it just like you would regular Rice-A-Roni:
(Break the noodles into tiny pieces first).  Melt the butter in a heated skillet and brown the rice and vermicelli until golden.  In the meantime mix together all the dry ingredients and set aside.  Once the rice is browned, pour in the water and seasonings and stir.  Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed.

(‘cept I’ll use half the butter next time, it was waaaaay too buttery for me)