Sunday, January 13, 2013

Cheesey Chicken Spaghetti recipe



A few observations for a Sunday:

First, Sunday comes WAY too early in my weekend.  It feels like yesterday was Thursday and here I am back to dreading going back to work tomorrow.  How does this happen? 

Second, Lemonade Vitamin Water Zero rocks my world...until I saw the ingredient list... It's supposed to be a water substitute - why does it have ingredients that I can't pronounce? 

Third, when my children don't get their scheduled naps, being a mom who drinks wine out of a sippy cup and pops pain pills doesn't seem so bad.  Silas missed enough of his normal nap(s) today that he fell asleep during dinner tonight.  Big problem.  Anyone who has had to wake up a child like that knows the Hell and torture that is to come until you can get that child back to sleep.  Luckily, he loves sleep like Corry and I do so he was right back to sleep after his bath and a bottle. 

Today was supposed to be productive.  I had an unstated to do list that was mostly done.  There were several items that had to get done:

1. Section out that bacon and ground beef that I bought yesterday and get that in the freezer.
2. Do at least a few loads of laundry.
3. Make at least one freezer meal. 

Chicken spaghetti it is.  This recipe was adapted from the Pioneer Woman's awesome chicken spaghetti.  Sometimes I will go back and make hers but usually I tweak it to our family's interests.  We have recently discovered roasting our own Poblano chiles and so we include a sizeable amount of those in our adaptation. 

Cheesey Chicken Spaghetti
3 cups cooked spaghetti - broken in half
2 chicken breasts - cooked and cubed
2 cans cream of "something" soup - you can use your favorite mixture of mushroom, cheddar cheese, or chicken)
1 cup chicken broth
1 jar diced pimentos, drained
1 small onion - diced
roasted poblano peppers to taste - we used two whole peppers this time and it was a bit spicy
1.5 tablespoons seasoning salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
2.5 cups shredded cheese - we Colby Jack but have previously used cheddar/mozarella blend

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 13x9 pan and set aside.
-Cook chicken until done then cube.  We boil on the stove.  Place in large mixing bowl.
-Add salt to same water used to boil chicken and cook broken pasta according to directions on package.  Drain and put in same bowl with the chicken. 
-Add both cans of soup.  Normally we use one cheddar cheese and one cream of chicken but we have also used one cream of mushroom instead of cheddar cheese soup and it turned out great as well. 
-Add your broth, pimentos, onion, peppers, seasoning salt, cayenne, salt, pepper and shredded cheese to the pasta and chicken mixture.  Stir until well combined. 
-Pour into greased 13x9 pan and place in over for 45 minutes or until bubbly around the edges.  Allow to set for at least 5-10 minutes before serving. 

Let me know how you like it!!


7 comments:

  1. I have only tried chicken spaghetti one other time, and it wasn't made like yours, and I didn't care for it at all. I might give yours a try though...Stephen loves chicken spaghetti! To freeze it, do you just wait until it's cooled then cover it with foil and freeze? How do you reheat it?

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    1. I have tried several different versions before and this is my favorite plus it's so easily adapted if you don't like onions, etc you can just leave them out and it's virtually the same. To freeze you just assemble it with aluminum foil in the pan and don't bake it. Totally freeze - I usually wait two days or so in the freezer and then wrap in another layer of foil and it stores really well. Once you want to eat, you completely thaw - this will take awhile - and bake as originally directed. It tastes just as awesome to me frozen as fresh. You could also do this in 2 8x8s and freeze one for later.

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  2. I might try this soon! With it just being me and Stephen, I think breaking this recipe into two would be a great idea. Only problem is having dishes available that I can leave in the freezer for extended amounts of time, I generally use the ones I have on a weekly basis.

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    1. I put aluminum foil in the pan, then pour the dish in, freeze solid and then you can remove your dish and wrap up the food again and it retains the shape of the pan. Then you can put the foil back in the pan when you defrost. Hope that makes sense!!

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  3. Definitely stole that idea from many freezer cooking moms - love it though bc it also helps them stack well in the freezer. Same with soups, stews, chilis, etc - I just freeze those in gallon ziplock bags flat and then they will stack easily. I also write what it is and date frozen on the bag bc it can start to look similar.

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  4. I definitely do the bag thing for liquids!

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