Sharing my favorite Hawaiian Haystacks recipe today! Perfect crock pot recipe the whole family loves! Homemade chicken gravy and lots of toppings!
Hawaiian Haystacks
Has everyone heard of Hawaiian Haystacks?! I had a friend over for dinner last week and she had never heard of or had Hawaiian Haystacks! I couldn’t believe it. We had this dinner all the time in Arizona, lol! Maybe it’s just an Arizona thing.
If you haven’t had this kind of dinner before you are in for a treat. It’s basically rice layered with a creamy chicken soup like gravy and topped with all kinds of fun toppings as you can see. It’s great to serve when you’ve got a lot of people over so everyone can make their own style.
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Hawaiian Haystacks Toppings
You can pretty much use whatever veggies you like with chicken. We love these baby heirlooms!
Green onions 🙂
These dried cranberries are really good as a topping.
Mmmmm almonds!
Crispy Chow Mein noodles. Adds the perfect crunch!
Some pineapple and sliced black olives.
Lots of cheese please 🙂
Alright, here we go, let’s start adding to this!
Add your chicken gravy and some green onions.
Some cranberries and olives.
Pineapple chunks and tomatoes!
LOVE these crispy noodles!
Don’t forget the cheese…..then grab your fork and go to town!
Tips For Serving
- It’s nice serving this meal family style. I like to put all of the toppings in little dishes so everyone can choose their favorites for their own plate.
- Keep the chicken gravy in a crock pot so that it stays warm all night
- A nice chopped salad goes great with this dinner.
- Hawaiian Haystacks are perfect for Sunday Dinner serving a crowd!
Homemade Hawaiian Haystacks
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons (1 sticunsalted butter
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 32 ounces reduced sodium chicken broth
- 2 teaspoons of dry Ranch Dressing seasoning packet
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
- 2 cups cooked shredded chicken breast
- Steamed rice enough for your family
- Toppings
- Chow Mein Crispy Noodles
- sliced green onions
- black olives
- pineapple
- cranberries
- almonds
- tomatoes
- shredded cheese
Instructions
- Place butter into a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring to melt. Slowly whisk in flour, salt and pepper until smooth and thick, for 1-2 minutes. Slowly whisk in chicken broth until smooth. Increase heat to high whisking until thick, about 2 minutes. Add sour cream, Ranch seasoning, garlic salt, and cooked chicken breast. Stir and season accordingly. You may prefer additional, salt, pepper and garlic salt. I transferred this to my crock pot and kept it on low all day until dinner. You can either serve it immediately or crock pot it until you are ready.
- Place rice on serving plates and top with chicken gravy. Have toppings at the table and top with whatever you like! Have fun!
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I love Hawaiian Haystacks! We also add peas and diced bell peppers to ours.
Delicious! We also include mandarin oranges, diced bell peppers, and toasted coconut. This looks delicious and I love your varieties!
I had never heard of Hawaiian Haystack,either…but I printed off the recipe and plan to make it!!! THANKS!!
I’ve never had these or heard of them but I have a feeling now that they will be making an appearance on the dinner table regularly. I’m already thinking of variations that I can make on this, too! Great idea!
Wow, I’ve never heard of these!! There’s a lot of stuff going on in that dish so it has to be good! Love your pretty tomatoes 🙂
I haven’t had one of these in forever!! TOTAL blast from the past!
Growing up in Washington we ate these all the time! We also like to have green peppers and tomatoes on ours. Mmmm. I think we’ll need to eat this sometime this week.
We do something very similar to this. We mke an easy chicken curry and then serve it with rice and a ton of toppings (bacon, hard boiled egg, green nions, pineapple, coconut, almonds, avocado, olives and more). Such a great easy dinner especially with company.
I would love to get your curry recipe! Sounds delicious, do you have it posted some where?
Thanks
A Hawaiian Haystack lover!
I always use canned cream of chicken soup for the gravy — one can soup to 1/2 can milk (double for more people, obviously). I made it this week when my dad was in town. He was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and is careful about his carbs now, so I used brown rice instead of the traditional white — it was really tasty. We usually put ham, chicken (pick one or take a little of both), green onion, tomato, green bell pepper, celery, carrots, crushed pineapple, toasted almonds, and cheese on for our toppings. Yummmmmm!
I live near an Amish community. They have gatherings centered around haystacks. I’m told they begin with rice or macaroni and cheese. Then you add taco meat or chili, onions, cheese, tomatoes, crunchy noodles and whatever else you like.
I grew up in Utah and I love Hawaiian Haystacks…thought it was a “Utah” thing. Good to see it’s loved elsewhere. For myself, I love the homemade sauce. And for toppings, there’s so many out there. Peas, fresh mushrooms, diced bell peppers, shredded coconut but I’ve gotta have the pineapple and shredded coconut with lots of cheese like you. This dish is so colorful it should be renamed “Rainbow Haystacks”. Thanks for sharing!
I have these on the menu for thiw week! We always do celery, never had it with olives before, but my kiddos love olives, so I’ll have to try it. And we always top ours with a maraschino cherry 🙂 Yours looks much prettier than mine turns out!!
I’m surprised you don’t have coconut on your ingredients since that is what makes them “Hawaiian”. 🙂 We love these and like someone else said, they are the perfect dinner for company because everyone can choose what they like.
My family is anti coconut eaters which is why you don’t see it on my photo 🙂
i have not heard of hawaiian haystacks before, but i`m definitely willing to try this out! you got me at chicken gravy. 🙂
We create these using smoked pork… Gravy is not creamy but made from the juice of pork. It’s FAB!!
I love these!! I’ve had them and and I call them Hawaiian Haystacks, but a friend of mine from Virginia called it “Snow on the Mountains” because of the creamy sauce on top of the chicken and rice I guess. Haven’t made these in forever, so I’ll have to add it back on to my dinner menu one of these days!
I grew up on Hawaiian Haystacks!! I have never tried it with dried cranberries though! Yum!! We were out of rice last time so my husband made it with quinoa. It was delicious!!
Never heard of this and sorta unsure about the combination. But more so because of the cheese and tomatoes. I am not a huge fan of raw tomatoes.
The beauty of the recipe is you can top the rice with whatever you like 🙂
I’ve had hawaiian haystacks, but never made my own. Thanks for sharing, I will definitely be making this one 🙂
We had something similar growing up, except it was called Amish Haystack. It had rice and a taco meat topping and all sorts of toppings. I dont know why it was called amish haystack when it was more mexican themed, but it was a family favorite. We didn’t care. 🙂
This is a family favorite at our house. I am gonna have to try your version! We also love coconut and celery on ours.
I love Hawaiian Haystacks! Make them often. Gorgeous photos!
Thanks Janetha!
We had these growing up, only they were called Japanese Ah-So Sundaes. We still love them.
Love that you made your own sauce, but one question – the list of ingredients says “sour cream”, but the directions say to add “cream cheese.” Which is it?
I love that you call them Japanese Ah So Sundaes! Thanks for catching my error, just edited. Should be sour cream. Thanks.
We have these, but call them Chinese Sundaes…so yummy!
Our family LOVES these. It’s especially great when company comes, since you can adjust the amount you make easily. My friend that grew up in Hawaii had never heard of these either. It think they are called that because of the pineapple and coconut.
Yes I totally agree, not a Hawaiian meal at all, lol!
I love Hawaiian haystacks! I’ve had them in CA and PA. I think the only other thing we add is chopped celery. Such a fun meal!
Yes, that is one think I like to add too, just left it out this time.
Arizona born and raised…never heard of it either.
Kentucky girl here….never heard of them. My six kids would love this! Trying soon!
Never heard of it, but it looks delicious.
Get out of TOWN. I’m so doing this.
we make this all the time! It is my kids favorite dinner. I usually just use cream of Chicken soup for the topping, but I am going to try it your way.
That’s how I used to have it Jenni! I thought it would be fun to make my own homemade sauce 🙂
Never heard of this before. I live in TX and we are more King Ranch Chicken types.
I’ve never heard of King Ranch Chicken, what is it? Bet it’s delicious!
I had never heard of Hawaiian Haystacks until I attended BYU (I think is a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints thing)! I loved HH day in the dorms and have continued the tradition in our family. We serve it with mandarin oranges, baby corn, and sometimes sliced water chestnuts, and always shredded coconut. Thanks for sharing.
I lived in AZ for 26 years and never heard of this dish ever. 🙂
Really?! Maybe it was just a “my family” made up meal by my mom 🙂 Who knows. It’s good though!
We also put coconut,and sliced avocado on ours. Yum!
Oooo, I would love avocado! Totally doing that next time!
I’ve never heard of these but it’s such a cool idea!
It’s such a quick easy dinner. The kids love it too with all the fun toppings.
I grew up in Hawaii and have never heard of Hawaiian Haystacks..
I highly doubt it’s really Hawaiian, that’s just what we called it.
Pineapple, cheese, baby heirlooms…right there, my eyes just lit up! Such pretty colors in this dish, Jenny!
I love all the colors too 🙂