Rough Day Casserole - 365 Days of Slow Cooking and Pressure Cooking (2025)

Rough Day Casserole–when you’ve had a rough day and you need a comforting dinner with hardly any effort try this dump and go Instant Pot cheesy macaroni, chicken and corn supper.

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Rough Day Casserole

I was having a rough day and then to top it off I spent a lot of time creating a new recipe and it totally failed. Womp wah. I didn’t have much energy left and it was dinner time. I came up with this comforting, easy dinner and it worked wonderfully. The pot was scraped clean as we all loved it. If you’re having a rough day and need an easy recipe try out this!

Ingredients/Substitution Ideas

• Chicken broth–or vegetable broth
• Elbow macaroni–or rotini
• Onion powder
• Garlic powder
• Black pepper
• Dijon mustard
• Frozen sweet white corn–or a can of corn
• Cooked, chopped chicken–I used frozen costco rotisserie chicken. You can also use1pound of raw chicken cut into1/2inch cubes
• Velveeta cheese–or a can of condensed cheese soup
• Milk

Steps

Pour broth into Instant Pot. Sprinkle in the pasta, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, dijon mustard, corn and chicken. Place the Velveeta on top of the chicken.

Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 3 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 5 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.

Stir. Add a bit of milk, if needed to loosen up.I used 3 Tbsp of milk.

Serve and enjoy!

Notes/Tips

• Serve with steamed or roasted broccoli.
• With your leftover Velveeta make underground chicken casserole or rotel dip.
• I used my 6 quart Instant Pot*. You can also make this in a 3 or 8 quart pot. You can easily double this recipe. Keep the same pressure cooking time.
• Store leftovers in an airtight container* in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
• If you’d like you can add in a bag of frozen broccoli or another vegetable when you add in the chicken.If you like peas stir them in after the pressure cooking time is over or they’ll get too mushy.
• You can easily make this without chicken. Another optional is to make it with sliced up smoked sausage or hot dogs or even tuna fish.

More Instant Pot Comfort Foods…

Did you know you can filter the recipes on my website to search by meat type, IP or Crockpot, low carb, gluten free, etc.?Use the filterto find exactly what you are looking for. 

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Rough Day Casserole

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4 from 1 review

• Author: 365 Days of Slow and Pressure Cooking
• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 3 minutes (plus 5 minute NPR)
• Total Time: 18 minutes
• Yield: 4–6 servings 1x

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Description

When you’ve had a rough day and you need a comforting dinner with hardly any effort try this Instant Pot cheesy macaroni, chicken and corn supper.

Ingredients

Scale

• 2 cups chicken broth
• 8 ounces elbow macaroni (or rotini)
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 Tbsp dijon mustard
• 1 cup frozen sweet white corn (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups cooked, chopped chicken (or 1 pound of raw chicken cut into 1/2 inch cubes)
• 8 ounces Velveeta cheese
• Milk, to thin out, if needed

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

1. Pour broth into Instant Pot. Sprinkle in the pasta, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, dijon mustard, corn and chicken. Place the Velveeta on top of the chicken.
2. Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 3 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 5 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.
3. Stir. Add a bit of milk, if needed to loosen up. I used 3 Tbsp of milk. Serve and enjoy!

Notes

If you’d like you can add in a bag of frozen broccoli or another vegetable when you add in the chicken.

• Category: Pasta
• Method: Instant Pot

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*Karen Petersen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.