Chicken dish I can pre-prepare for Christmas Eve dinner

[NotAsTired]

I will be travelling to in-laws for Christmas and need to cook a chicken dish in advance for 6-10 people that I can heat up in the oven. We are travelling down on Christmas Eve. It needs to be fairly bland (they don't do spice), reheats well and travels well (don't want it to spill, although I could put it in Tupperware I guess).

Chicken leek and mushroom pie?

Eek! I have never made pie before, although that does sound nice. I am normally a curry person and only beginning to learn to cook traditional British food.

Would I pre-cook the pie?

Jamie Oliver's chicken and leek pie was a massive hit in this house, dcs said it was the best ever!

There are lots of nice chicken casserole recipes out there: BBC Good Food have a fairly mild one with a honey-mustard-parsnip combo, or you could do an Italian one with bacon, red wine and mushrooms - also on BBC Good Food. Casseroles freeze really well and travel easily too.

If you make a pie in advance then you would usually precook the filling cool it and top with raw pastry. Then just cook when you arrive. (you could even transport the filling in tupperware and do the assembly when you arrive too) Ready made pastry is pretty good.

Another option (although not strictly cook ahead) is to do a traybake. You could prep the veg and put the whole thing into big roasting tins ready to go in the oven when you get there. Nigella does a nice chicken and chorizo one or have a look at BBC Good Food website for alternatives if chorizo is a bit out there for your inlaws

puff pastry top and filling made with asparagus soup mix added to fried chicken and mushrooms or leeks is nice. as people have said you could take the pie mix and pastry separately and then combine once there.

or what about making a cheese or white sauce and adding cooked chicken to it, mabye with some sweetcorn. cooking some pasta once you get there, sticking it all in a baking dish and heat it up in the oven - adding grated breadcrumbs mixed with cheese if you want it to look posher

Thanks for all the great ideas. Some delicious recipes and ideas. at shoewhore's comment re: chorizo. So true.

I've had a look at the casserole recipes it they all seem to call for chicken thighs but I know they would prefer chicken breast. Right, I am going to go for chicken pie of some description. I will do a couple of dry runs to see how they turn out. I think I may go for pie crust as opposed to puff pastry as I find puff pastry a bit greasy (have to please myself too ).

Another one you might like if you're going for pie is to roast a whole chicken with mild herbs like thyme and shallots then cool the meat, shred it and add cooked mushrooms or leeks and a light cream sauce to make the pie filling. Makes the chicken lovely and chickeny!

Or I make this pie sometimes though it's 3 leeks not 30 ;-)