Amish Maple Chicken and Rice

Amish Rice Bake - Maple and Chicken Rice — Maple Chicken and Rice makes a delicious supper!

In many Amish communities, homemade maple syrup is a staple of late winter and spring. you need a very specific set of weather conditions for syrupy perfection: warmer days, followed by chilly nights, to get the sap flowing in maple trees just right.

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🙋 FAQ
🍁 Amish Maple Chicken and Rice
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And it just so happens that there are several large Amish communities located in this “perfect climate zone for m"aking maple syrup. Among the big maple syrup-making Amish communities, I would include: Geauga County Ohio, the Conewango Valley of New York State, the new Amish settlements in Vermont, and almost any Amish settlement in Canada: Milverton Ontario, and Aylmer, Ontario to name a couple.

Many Amish families have sugar shacks on their property, and making maple syrup is a big deal every spring. And maple syrup is used in so many different ways. Basically, maple syrup is a replacement for sugar. Maple syrup will make its way into breads, cakes, pies, drizzled on cereal, and even into meat dishes like this chicken recipe.

Let the chicken soak in maple for at least 30 minutes.

This is sugaring season and maple is king in Amish communities this time of year. We've talked a lot about maple-infused baked goods, but maple can also make a pretty good flavoring for meat.

Many Amish cooks like to soak their chicken in maple syrup. So how about some Maple Chicken and Rice? My mother recently made this. They had some leftover white rice and precooked chicken, so it was easy to assemble. Only took about 20 minutes because they had the rice ready and the chicken precooked. My parent soaked the chicken in maple for about 30 minutes and my Mom said it had great maple flavor. If you have time (I sprung this recipe on them at the last minute), you can let it soak overnight and that'll give it an awesome mapley flavor.

You will definitely notice a difference the longer you soak the chicken in maple. If you only have 30 minutes, that is fine, but if you have 3 hours, that's better.

🙋 FAQ

Is there an ingredient I can use instead of maple syrup in this chicken recipe?

Pure maple syrup is expensive, so you're forgiven if you don't want to use a bunch of it simply to soak chicken. If you'd rather not use the liquid gold for soaking chicken, you can use pancake syrup, honey, corn syrup, molasses, or imitation maple. All will have slightly different flavors, but they are economical alternatives. This recipe would work great with any of those!

The Ritz crackers make a great topping, but you could use a buttery Club type cracker

You can bake this in a glass baking dish or a 2-quart casserole. This would also be great in a slow cooker or crock pot. I think if you didn't have chicken flavoring (Boullion) on hand, you could get by with some chicken broth or even poultry seasoning. You can read about the differences in all those options here with this primer on another website.

So there is some flexibility with this recipe, probably the key thing is pure maple syrup and soak the chicken for a good 3 hours if you can!