Creamy chicken pasta recipes are weeknight-cooking saviours. Quick and easy, tasty and satisfying, what more can you ask for? Add these dishes to your comfort food repertoire: chicken marsala fettucine and chicken and bacon pasta.
Skillet chicken lasagna
Traditional lasagna recipes have a reputation for being time-consuming, complicated, and requiring multiple ingredients. Not to mention washing up! It’s true, they are a labour of love and usually mean an afternoon in the kitchen. But I love that about lasagna! Not everyone does so this skillet lasagna is a shameless cheat’s version that is rewriting the rule book. Let’s look at the cuts: Time-consuming? This easy lasagna recipe makes a mockery of classic lasagna’s all-in 4.5 hours kitchen time with a puny 30 minutes! Complicated? While a typical layered lasagna is a soffritto based-Bolognese sauce and a labour-intensive béchamel (that’s two pans and a lot of stirring!), skillet chicken lasagna is combining ready-made pesto, chicken stock and cream. Multiple ingredients? This simplified lasagna halves a traditional lasagna’s ingredient list. It centres on chicken breast, garlic and basil pesto rather than a convoluted beefy Bolognese and relies on an easy cream and cheese mix in place of béchamel. I’ve added spinach and basil leaves into the mix for some colour too, and then of course the deconstructed lasagna sheets. Washing up? The clue is in the name. The whole meal is prepared in your trusty skillet only. Is that actually the best part??! It is for whoever is doing the dishes. OK, so the two types of lasagna are worlds apart really and only have lasagna sheets in common. So, it’s not exactly a fair fight. But if you’re looking for a quick-fix, no fuss, beef-free pasta dish, white chicken lasagna- to the rescue!
Serving suggestions
As you’re at the stove and will have the oven fired up, there’s loads of options for sides. On the stove top, I’d go for lemon butter green beans. I love how the citrus complements the cream and tangy parmesan cheese in the main dish, and it brings bonus crunch. Pan-fried zucchini with basil and pecorino will use up any leftover basil leaves. Or pan-fried garlic mushrooms because I can barely serve a chicken breast recipe without a mushroom somewhere. In the oven, I’d choose roasted broccoli with sun-dried tomatoes. It’s an extra dose of Parmesan, crispy broccoli florets and sweet and chewy tomatoes. Or roasted summer vegetable salad with nuts and seeds to bring colour to the table and texture to the plate. And if there’s one thing any lasagna can agree on, it’s garlic bread!
Storage and leftovers
You might have frozen leftover lasagna before and it’s turned out beautifully. However, this pared back, easy lasagna recipe is made with cream rather than béchamel so it is not friends with the freezer. Fyi, frozen and thawed cream becomes grainy in texture and is not appetizing. You can keep any post-meal leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days. Reheat covered in the oven, or microwave.
More recipes to try:
Easy Lasagna Soup Traditional Spaghetti Bolognese White Chicken Lasagna with Winter Greens Seafood Lasagna with Crab, Shrimp, Scallops and Calamari
