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Traci's Chicken Noodle Casserole

"This is a quick and delicious pop-in-the-oven dinner that your whole family will love! If you like, you can use cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup, instead of cream of celery. Add a vegetable for color, if desired!"

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,808 recipes mention both. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

6 servings
Prep10 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and set out a 9x13-inch baking dish.

  2. Bring a large pan of boiling water to a boil, add the elbow macaroni, and cook for about 8 minutes until just tender. Drain well.

  3. In a large bowl, whisk the condensed cream of celery soup and milk until smooth, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Stir the drained macaroni, cooked cubed chicken, chopped onions, and cubed processed cheese into the soup mixture until evenly combined.

  5. Spread the mixture evenly in the baking dish and cover with foil.

  6. Bake for 45 minutes, then remove the foil and bake 10 more minutes until bubbling and the onions are tender. The chicken should reach 165°F (74°C) in the center.

  7. Let the casserole rest for 5 minutes before serving.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Celery + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,506 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chicken + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,387 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, cream, cheese, onion, pepper):

  1. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, cream, cheese, onion, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).