Creamy Tomato Chicken Pasta Bake

Creamy Tomato Chicken Pasta Bake Serves Approx 8

Hi all, Mark here. When Alicia asked me what to do with our leftover roast chicken, I decided to take a look online. I found a slow cooker/crockpot recipe that caught my eye but it didn’t quite suit what we wanted. So, after tweaking it enough that I’m not just stealing someone else’s recipe, I came up with something that may well become a family favourite for us.

This Creamy Tomato Chicken Pasta Bake recipe is great if you’re in a bit of a hurry, as most of us will have these ingredients already in the pantry, as well as some leftover roast chicken or turkey, or pork, or other meat in the fridge. Let’s get started!

Ingredients:

• 500g jar of tomato-based pasta sauce
• 400g can of chopped tomatoes (with herbs if you like), blitzed with a stick blender
• 420g can of creamy chicken soup
• 3tsp dried oregano
• 3tsp dried basil
• 1tsp garlic powder
• 250g cold, almost frozen cream cheese, diced into cubes (we used Philadelphia)
• 1/2 roast chicken shredded, skin discarded
• Approx 1 cup of Cheddar cheese
• Parmesan to taste
• 500g dried pasta of your choice or if you’re really adventurous, try using homemade pasta!

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Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200ºc
2. Add pasta to boiling water and allow to boil for approx 10 minutes or until pasta is almost cooked but still al dente. Note: If using homemade or fresh pasta, only boil for 2 minutes.
3. While pasta is simmering, pour your jar of sauce into a mixing bowl and rinse out the jar with a little water to make sure you get it all. add your can of blitzed chopped tomatoes, shredded chicken, chicken soup, herbs, and garlic powder. Mix until well combined
4. Gently fold in the cubes of cream cheese, no need to soften, just leave them as whole as possible, that way, when it’s baked, you get little pockets of cream cheese!
5. Drain your pasta. Note: save about half a cup of the starchy pasta water.
6. Add pasta to the sauce and mix. If the mixture seems a little dry, pour in some of the pasta water and mix again. repeat until you have plenty of sauce. At this point it may not look very attractive, don’t worry, it all comes together when baked.
7. Pour mixture into a baking dish place uncovered into the oven for approx 20 – 30 minutes.
8. Remove from the oven and sprinkle over the Cheddar cheese and Parmesan to taste. Place back in the oven and bake for a further 15 – 20 minutes until the cheese is golden.
9. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for around 15 minutes before serving.

If you enjoyed this recipe, check out my other savoury recipes

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