Hello, fellow chicken cheesy delicious tasters! I’ve been asked for this recipe below by the wholly awesome Dr. Westman, along with friends awhile back. Why the wait? I wanted to, as per usual, perfect it before sharing. I get seriously creepy persnickety when I know I’m sharing with friends.
For starters, I am a fan of the penne pasta (pictured above), but it doesn’t cook through as easily as the corkscrew pasta I recommend for this dish (you can still use the penne, but be sure to definitely and thoroughly stir the dish part way through to ensure the noodles cook through).
We absolutely love this dish and eat it often. In fact, I usually have to literally double the dish in a huge casserole pan or it’s gone the first day. Adding to the home lovin’, it’s perfect to take to banquets. No one will ever suspect it’s not the usual high-carb meal. You’re a cooking Ninja!
If you want to go gluten free, sub out noodles for your favorite veggies (I’m thinking cauliflower florets and broccoli).If you’d like to cut back on the dairy, you can check out subbing part (or all) of the cream with coconut milk or almond milk.
Don’t have six cheeses, or you’re not feeling as hard-core as your friends at Your Lighter Side? No worries! You can use less cheese. Just aim for the 3 cups. Hint: You can use marscapone or cream cheese as one of your cheese choices, too). No matter what, when you make this dish, you are automatically inducted into my Wisconsin family.
Gourmet Six Cheese Chicken Casserole
2 cups cooked chicken, diced
1 box uncooked Dreamfield’s rotini pasta
6 prepared slices of bacon, chopped coarsely
¼ cup fresh, chopped, chives (or green onions)
¼ cup minced purple onion
½ cup roasted (or fresh) red peppers, chopped fine (about a jar)
2 cups heavy white cream
½ cup organic chicken broth
4 Tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder or 3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried parsley leaves
4 cups shredded cheese:
½ cup cheddar
1 cup chopped aged (sharp) cheddar or feta cheese
¾ cup mozzarella
½ cup feta
1 cup shredded Parmesan, set aside ¼ cup
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese (the canned kind)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Toss cubed chicken, bacon, roasted red pepper, chives and uncooked noodles in an ungreased casserole pan (9X13). Set aside.
3. Melt butter over medium heat on the stove in a 4 quart saucepan.
4. Add onion to the sizzling butter and cook until transparent, about 3-5 minutes. (If you go for the powders in lieu of onion and garlic, add powders to the cream along with the other spices and skip steps 4 and 5.)
5. Add garlic and cook for no more than a minute.
6. Add heavy white cream, chicken broth, salt, pepper, parsley and any other spices to the saucepan and stir until heated throughout, about 5-7 minutes.
7. Stir in cheddars, mozzarella, sharp cheese (feta) cheese and 3/4 cup of the shredded Parmesan cheese and cook, stirring occasionally, until thoroughly melted, about 5-7 more minutes.
8. Pour cream mixture over chicken mixture in the bowl and toss to coat chicken mixture evenly. Por mixture into the pan and lightly stir to incorporate the chicken broth.
9. Bake, covered, in the oven for 30 minutes, stirring after 15 minutes to make sure all noodles are coated evenly.
10. Mix grated canned Parmesan cheese with remaining shredded Parmesan in a small mixing bowl, toss. Set aside.
11. Remove from oven and stir one more time to coat noodles. In a small bowl, toss remaining ¼ cup shredded Parmesan cheese with grated Parmesan cheese and chives. Sprinkle over casserole and return to oven, uncovered, for up to 15 minutes, or until cheese is golden.
Serve warm. This recipe can be frozen, doubled, and served the next day/reheated. If you do freeze or prepare ahead, be sure to add the noodles right before baking, as the low carb noodle matrix is only intact for the first baking of the product. Don’t worry–your family will eat it and none will be left for leftovers anyway.
Hi, this is a bit off topic, BUT, how does one print the recipe without killing five pages??
Thanks,
Sara W.
You can elect to copy just the first page or two,. After hitting CONTROL + P, choose the number of pages you'd like to print. Choose 1-2, depending on the length of the entry,
OMG this looks sinfully rich! WE don't do Dreamfields very often, but I might have to break down and try this! I do have the penne on hand. I think the "3 cups cheese:" line needs to read "4 cups cheese:" though. That's what I come up with when I add up the various cheeses listed there. 🙂
BTW, I'm so excited. I just recently discovered Printerfriendly.com for embedding a printer-friendly button on website. No programmer skills required. Believe me, if I can do it, it's REAL easy. LOL They provide the coding for independent sites like yours as well as for hosted sites like mine at wordpress.com. Might be worth a look see.
Thank you so much, Peggy. I appreciate it! You are the best. I will definitely look into it, and I made the edit. I love you.
Fondly,
Jamie
This was SOOOOOO GOOD. Really Amazing. Enough to freeze for another dinner for my husband & I. I think next time I may double the chicken and half the pasta, and possibly add some broccoli. It was great, thank you so much!!
Just tried to post, but it disappeared, so sorry if this is a duplicate…
This recipe was GREAT!!! Made enough to freeze some for another meal. Next time I may add double the chicken and 1/2 the pasta, and possibly add broccoli. It was great- thank you SO much for the recipe!
I made this recipe last night and it was wonderful!! I did not use pasta, but fresh cauliflower and portabello mushrooms instead. I added a pinch of fresh nutmeg to the sauce along with a 1/2 cup of dry marsala and it was perfect. Because I added the marsala, the sauce was a bit thinner than I would have preferred, but thickened up nicely as it cooled. Thanks so much for the recipe—it is a keeper!!
Thank you so much! I am so glad, Tammy. Your cauliflower sounds great!
Can anyone tell me the carb count per serving and number of servings for this recipe
Margie, I haven't run those numbers quite yer, but a box of Dreamfields is 6 servings at 5 net carbs each, so it's 30 net for an entire recipe in the pasta. From there, it's just the carbs in cheese and cream. I hope that helps a little!
If I use broccoli instead of pasta, should I cook it first?
Do you list ANY nutritional values for your recipes. It’s really a pain to have to figure out every recipe I’m interested in to see what the nutritional costs are.
Hi there! I actually do for most of the recipes on the site, but I went through a period when I was literally swamped and couldn’t get those values up as I wanted to. Will work on this. Thanks so much for your kick to the bum. I needed it and will do this as soon as I can… In the mean time, I’d guesstimate a serving of the dish is 8 net carbs and 400 calories to be safe…