Creamy Chicken Pasta Bake

I’d already started dishing up before I remembered I should take a photo! Oops…
Also, the picture is of the batch I made when I didn’t have any frozen peas, so it doesn’t have them in it. The other two batches of this I’ve made over the last 2 months had peas (anything to up the vege content!)
It also tastes fine without the bacon (ran out of bacon the last time I made it), if for whatever reason bacon is off the list.

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

• 250g dry pasta (I generally use spirals or penne)
• 500g diced chicken
• 1 brown onion (or a leek if you’re feeling fancy)
• 3 bacon rashers
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 300ml sour cream
• 1 cup corn kernels
• 1 cup peas
• 1 tbsp chives
• 1 cup grated tasty cheese

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Cook pasta until tender and drain. Meanwhile, heat oil in a large frying pan over med-high heat. Cook chicken until browned, then transfer into a heatproof bowl.
3. Add onion (or leek), bacon and garlic to pan and cook until onion (leek) is softened. Return chicken to pan, and add stock cube and 1 cup of cold water. Bring to simmer, and simmer until chicken is just cooked through.
4. Stir in sour cream, corn, peas, and chives. Add pasta to pan and toss/stir to combine. Pour/spoon mixture into an 8-cup baking dish and top with grated cheese.
5. Bake for 30mins or until golden on top.

NOTE – I use a large frying pan for this, and it is JUST big enough to combine the pasta and chicken mix before transferring to the baking dish. If you are worried about your pan not being big enough, use a bigger pot for the pasta and combine it in that, or even in the baking dish itself.

This got the 5-star approval from Hubby 🙂 This recipe freezes well, so is great for bulk-cooking.

“Hidden Veg” variation
If your kids/partner/siblings/housemates/whatever will eat veges if they’re covered in a creamy cheesy sauce, just add diced/small bits of whatever to the recipe. Carrots, broccoli, peas, beans, corn, and cauliflower work best in my experience. You don’t really want to use potato, because there’s already carbs from the pasta, and pumpkin and sweet potato tend to just turn to orange mush.
If they’re prone to picking out veges whenever they find them, cook up half a cauliflower, mash it to death (even use a blender!) and add it at the same time as the sour cream. They’ll never even know it’s there!

~K