Tang and Twang: Buttermilk Mushroom Baked Chicken
Someone out there thought to mix buttermilk and cream of mushroom soup, and it’s a brilliant, tangy sauce for chicken. This is an office recipe that was making the rounds. It was literally dictated to me without having to write down the instructions. It’s that simple. And it’s delicious and quite satisfying. I have found multiple versions on the web that slightly vary, but most stick to the basics.
I am going to give you two versions of the recipe – the basic buttermilk and soup sauce and also an alternate version that came from experimenting, and which is even more rich and satisfying, only requiring the addition of sautéing some onion and sliced mushrooms in butter.
Serve this over rice or, perhaps, egg noodles, as the sauce has a stroganoff twang to it.
Enjoy …
Buttermilk Mushroom Baked Chicken
For the Dredge:
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp black pepper
½ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp red pepper, optional
For the Chicken, Marinade and Sauce:
4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 cups buttermilk, divided
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
6 TB butter, divided
To Make It More Rich:
8 oz. sliced, white mushrooms, washed, drained, chopped
1 medium sweet onion, diced
Marinate the chicken breasts in 1 cup of buttermilk for 30 minutes or up to several hours.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Spray a glass 13 x 9 baking dish with cooking oil, put 4 TB of butter in there and then melt it in the oven.
Mix all of the dredge ingredients in a mixing bowl. Remove the melted butter in the glass dish from the oven and carefully swirl to cover the bottom in butter.
Remove chicken from buttermilk marinade. Run the chicken breasts through the dredge, shake to remove any excess flour, and place in the glass baking dish. Return glass dish to oven and cook 20 minutes.
While the chicken is cooking, mix two cans of mushroom soup with two cups buttermilk in a sauce pan and heat until bubbly. Throw in a pinch of paprika, black pepper, and garlic powder to align with your chicken flavors. Salt to taste. You can stop there with the sauce, and you will get a delicious dish.
If you want to make the sauce richer, before mixing the buttermilk and soup, sauté the diced onion and sliced mushrooms in 2 TB butter. Once the onion is softened and the moisture from the mushrooms has evaporated (about 12 minutes), add the 2 cups buttermilk and 2 cans of mushroom soup to the onion and mushroom mixture, and heat until bubbly.
After the chicken has cooked the first 20 minutes, take it out of the oven and turn breasts over and cook an additional 15 minutes. The chicken will probably stick to the bottom of the dish, but worry not. The dredge serves as a thickener and flavor booster.
Get your rice or egg noodles going.
Take chicken back out of the oven (it has cooked 35 minutes at this point) and add buttermilk mushroom sauce to the glass baking dish, pouring over breasts to cover (depending on the size!). Do not overfill with the sauce; keep any remaining sauce warm on the stove. You will want the additional sauce – I promise.
Return to oven and cook an additional 15 – 25 minutes until chicken breasts are no longer pink and are cooked through. The total cooking time should be 50 – 60 minutes.
Remove from the oven and cool 5 – 10 minutes. Using a fork and knife, cut chicken into chunks or shred it. Stir the melted butter, sauce, and chicken in the baking dish. Serve over rice or noodles.