Chicken Bacon Caesar Casserole
With the bold flavors of garlic, parmesan, and bacon this easy keto casserole will please the most reluctant low carb eater. My Chicken Bacon Spinach Casserole is great when you are pressed for time. It is easy, flavorful, and can be made ahead. You can even make it in a crockpot. This easy keto casserole recipe is low carb, keto, gluten-free, grain-free, sugar-free, and Trim Healthy Mama friendly.
I’ve made this keto casserole so many times over the last few months it’s amazing my kids haven’t complained. But they still love it. This is the only way to get some of them, or all of them, to eat spinach. When I’m craving a little rich and creamy comfort food this is one of my go-to keto casserole recipes.
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How to make a keto casserole
The simplest way to make any casserole keto-friendly is to leave out the starches. Most regular casseroles call for fillers like rice, pasta, or beans. In my low carb casseroles, I use proteins, vegetables, and fat. No starches.
How to make a casserole in a crockpot
It isn’t hard to convert this to a slow cooker recipe. There are just three steps to making a chicken casserole in a crockpot instead of your oven.
- Cook the chicken in the crockpot. It is very important not to OVERCOOK the chicken or you will have a dry casserole. Cook chicken breasts on low for 2.5 hours. Add a little chicken broth, butter or oil, and salt and pepper before cooking.
- DRAIN the cooking liquid. Cut up the chicken.
- Proceed with the rest of the casserole recipe. This time just cook it in the crockpot until it is hot.
The most important step is draining the cooking liquid. If you don’t do this you will end up with soup instead of a casserole.
What ingredients are in the sauce?
My typical sauce base for casseroles is cream cheese, mayo, and sour cream. This is how I can get a smooth and rich sauce without using any cans of condensed soup.
Chicken, chicken, and more chicken
We eat a lot of chicken. It is very budget friendly and easy to cook. You may remember me getting excited when my husband brought me home a two-pound bag of shrimp.
I was slightly less excited when he brought home 12 pounds of chicken breast because the freezer was packed after my Costco trip the day before. I managed to squeeze one pack in any way and we cooked the rest.
This casserole was invented about halfway through our chicken week when I just needed something that tasted less like chicken. So, in other words, it needed bacon. This Chicken Bacon Caesar Casserole has already gotten rave reviews from everyone who has tried it.
What else is in this keto chicken casserole?
This is very similar to my Chicken Bacon Ranch Casserole. If you’ve tried that one and liked it there is high probability you will like this one too. Instead of dried herbs, there is parmesan cheese and roasted garlic powder. Instead of cheddar, there is mozzarella. But there is always bacon.
More keto casserole recipes:
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Chicken Bacon Caesar Casserole
Ingredients
- 8 oz cream cheese softened
- 4 oz sour cream
- 4 oz mayo
- 2 tsp roasted garlic powder (this is worth the investment, the flavor is amazing!)
- 2 tsp dried minced onion
- 2-2.5 lb cooked chicken , cubed
- 12 oz bag frozen spinach , thawed and drained
- 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 4 slices crisp cooked bacon or 1/4 cup bacon crumbles
- 2 oz shredded mozzarella
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 if baking immediately. Or you can prep ahead and keep in the refrigerator for a day or two.
- Combine cream cheese, sour cream, mayo, and spices and mix thoroughly. I do this first in a big metal bowl.
- In the big bowl combine the cream cheese mixture you just made with the chicken, spinach, parmesan cheese, and 1/2 the bacon and mix well.
- Dump into a 9x13 baking dish sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle remaining cheese and bacon on top.
- Bake until hot about 35 minutes.
Video
Nutrition
Originally Published March 12, 2016. Revised and Republished January 18, 2020.
How do you cook your chicken?
I normally bake it in a large Pyrex covered with foil at 350 until it is 160 with a meat thermometer. For the summer I’m going to cook it in the crock pot. I just put a little salt on.
I made this tonight for my sister and I. We are on a low carb diet. It was really delicious. Even our non carb picky eaters who do not like veggies were saying how good it was. We made a lot and it was all gone by the end of the night. Thank you so much for a delicious dinner. Looking forward to trying some more of your recipes.
Is the cubed chicken pre-cooked?
Yes, you use cooked chicken in this recipe.
This looks delish! Adding to my menu this week 🙂
Found this during a recipe search a few weeks back but only got around to making it tonight. I NEVER comment, but this was so good, I had to. I didn’t change a thing and it came out so creamy and flavorful. Just enough chicken, just enough spinach, everthing balanced and came to create magic. It was the best meal I’ve had since being told to go gluten free by my doctor. I live alone, so I prepped 5 small servings in mini loaf pans, baked one and froze the other four, leaving the mozzarella off until I bake them. Thank you for this!
Thank you for taking the time to comment Erin. Good reviews make me so happy! I’m glad you liked it 🙂
How many does this serve? I can’t seem to find it anywhere…
Approx. 6. It says it in the recipe box.
This was DELICIOUS. One of the best meals I’ve eaten while low-carb ingredients over the last 1.5 years. I added a steamed California mix of veggies (green beans, broccoli, cauliflower). I made some dill pickle coleslaw on the side to add something cold and fresh and it was awesome! I’m not too familiar with oz measurements up here in Canada, so my sour cream and mayo were 1/2c each and cream cheese was a half package of Philly. Thanks so so much for this gem of a casserole
Thank you for sharing this recipe. It looks low-carb and delicious!!! I can’t wait to give it a try. 🙂
I just made this tonight for supper. I am on a ketogenic diet and it looked Keto. I did forget to cook the bacon till too late so it did not get put on. And my shredded mozzarella was in c clump from being out of the fridge too long so I used my mozzarella slices. I covered the top with slices of mozzarella and it was delish. I liked it with more cheese than the original recipe.
About how much is 4 oz. of sour cream and 4 oz. of mayo? Like 1/4 cup?
It’s about 1/2 a cup, I really just eyeball though when I’m normally making it. I only measure when I’m writing down the recipe 🙂
Thank you!
I can’t find the recipe! Setting out to make it but there are no directions that I can find! Help!
Hi Glenda, I think you found this on Pinterest? Only the ingredients are shown on Pinterest. To get the instructions you need to go to the blog post. My post has instructions within the post and in the printable recipe at the bottom.
I took this out of the oven an hour ago, and realized it was missing something. It needs artichokes! Of course I didn’t have a jar in the pantry. Oh, well, next time.
It’s actually on my to do list to make a casserole with spinach and artichokes 🙂 They are a great combo!
Can you freeze this meal? If so should you cook it first?
Yes, you can freeze it. I know some people have frozen my bacon ranch chicken and this is similar. Do not bake it first (but still use cooked chicken when assembling). You can thaw overnight in the fridge and then bake as directed. Before my last baby I made a lot of freezer meals like this too. 🙂
How much spinach? There are different sizes…
I just edited to clarify. One 10-12 oz bag is what I used. I forget the exact oz but it wouldn’t matter that much..Hope that helps!
I have fresh spinach I need to use….How do you think that would work? Need to cook it first?
I would cook it first. I wouldn’t want it to make the casserole watery. Spinach releases a lot of liquid.
If you were to leave out the minced onion and be selective of which cheese used, this recipe should. E completely carb free. I’m not sure how it’s figuring 10.6g above. Those two ingredients being the only ones with carbs, it shouldn’t be even that high.
The spinach has carbs, as well as the sour cream. The onion is 1 gram total, and the three cheeses combined are 12.2 grams. So the cheeses and onion contributed 2 grams of carb per serving. Probably not worth swapping out for other ingredients. The garlic powder alone is 4 grams.
Do you think it would freeze well? I’d love to have some at the ready for busy days.
Sorry, Mandi, but I’m not sure. Dairy can do funny things when frozen so I haven’t been brave enough to try. Next time you make it you could freeze one small portion and see what happens.
Do you have any nutritional info on your recipes?
You can input recipes here: https://www.caloriecount.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php
Approximate, based on 6 servings.
Calories 656
Calories from Fat 355
Total Fat 39.4g
Saturated Fat 19.9g
Trans Fat 0.0g
Cholesterol 207mg
Sodium 876mg
Potassium 650mg
Total Carbohydrates 10.6g
Dietary Fiber 1.2g
Sugars 1.8g
Protein 65.2g
These numbers seem off. It should have a higher fat count compared to protein.
If you figure it out let me know. I don’t really have time to spend doing the nutrition for my recipes. I don’t use it myself (for trim healthy mama you don’t could macros). Since so many people are asking for the casserole recipes I gave it a shot 😉
I used Calorie King and entered all the data. Only rounded the tiniest bits. Here’s what I came up with for the macros I track:
Per serving (6 servings)
calories: 688
protein: 66
fat: 45
carbs: 5
I am assuming the 2oz of mozzarella go on the top, I didn’t see it mentioned in the directions.
Yes, on top. Sorry about that. I’ll add it to the directions.
You managed to use all these chicken! Looks comforting.