Skinny Chicken Divan with Cauliflower Cream Sauce

5 from 6 votes

PURE comfort food made SO light!

Prep Time20

Cook Time35

Course: Casserole

Cuisine: American, French

Keyword: bake, broccoli, casserole, cauliflower cream sauce, chicken, divan

Servings:

Calories: 313kcal

Author: Lillie

About 1/2 head of cauliflower or one 10 oz bag of florets
4 cups chicken stock or enough to cover cauliflower in pot- only 1/2-1 cup added in sauce later
1/2 tbs butter
4 cloves garlic I use frozen dorot cubes
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cup milk I used fat free fairlife milk- best macros but it hardly matters in such a small quantity.
1 tsp curry powder optional if you like the flavor. I LOVE it, but Ross doesn't, so I just sprinkled a bunch on my portion.
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
For the Chicken Divan
About 6-700 g of cauliflower cream sauce
4 cups chopped grilled chicken 530 g- I used my weekly bulk grilled chicken that I always have on hand. (Feel free to do more!)*
20 oz broccoli florets cooked according to package. I just buy the fresh in bags you can throw in the microwave.
2 oz sharp sheddar I used a yummy onion and chive one from Trader Joes (You could double the cheese and only add a few more grams of fat to each portion- if a portion is about 1/6th of a 9x13. If you've got room, that would of course be all the yummier! Of course you could use low fat if you like that too. I wanted something with more flavor.
1 large sandwich roll or any white bread chopped or broken into big bread crumbs- about 2 cups I used a 90 g bolillo roll

Bring 4 cups chicken broth to a boil in a large pot (or enough to cover the cauliflower). Add the cauliflower and cook, covered, for 7-10 minutes or until cauliflower is fork tender. Do not drain.
While the cauliflower cooks, sauté the garlic and butter in a large nonstick skillet over LOW heat. Cook for several minutes until the garlic is soft and fragrant but not brown. You don't want it bitter! Remove from heat and set aside.
Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cauliflower pieces to your blender. Add 1/2 cup of the hot chicken broth, the sautéed garlic/butter, salt, pepper, curry, lemon and milk. Blend or puree for a few minutes until the sauce is very smooth. You can add more broth or milk depending on how thick you want the sauce. I prefer at least another 1/2 cup broth. Discard remaining broth. Set sauce aside.

Preheat oven to 350 and spray 9x13 with nonstick cooking spray
Combine cooked broccoli (I salt it a little), chopped cooked chicken (you could also use shredded rotisserie chicken), and cauliflower cream sauce in a large bowl so everything gets coated (or do it directly in your pan if you can handle stirring there!)
Sprinkle with *2 oz grated cheese (56g), and top with bread crumbs.
Spray the top of the breadcrumbs with a mist of cooking spray, and sprinkle with kosher salt.
Bake for 35 minutes uncovered.

I made a WHOLE batch of cauliflower sauce (and this is a half). I used half the batch in our divan and that was perfect for us. But it wasn't super saucy like a classic divan filled with sour cream and mayo. If you want it to be saucier, double this batch or reference the original over here. And then use as much as you see fit. Maybe even all of it! Especially if you're serving it over a grain. Or make the whole batch and use only half of it for easy logging (if you log this directly from MFP the macros account for the recipe as is) ...and then if needed, you can spoon more sauce over your serving and estimate a few more macros. It's so light! For 100 grams of cream sauce, mine came to 2.9c/1f/1.7p. You also have the option in MFP to log just the "Lillie Eats and Tells Cauliflower Cream Sauce.)
My kids ate it over pasta, and I had mine with cauliflower rice. So comforting and nostalgic!