White Chicken Lasagna

I tried a new meal this week. This came from "Don't Panic - More Dinner's in the Freezer".


½ cup butter, melted
½ cup flour
1 t. salt
¼ t. black pepper
1 t. dried basil
3 cups chicken broth
3 cups cooked chicken, diced
8 oz. lasagna noodles
2 cups cottage cheese
1 egg, slightly beaten
5 oz. frozen chopped spinach, cooked and drained
½ lb mozzarella, thinly sliced
8 oz fresh parmesan cheese, grated

Directions: Melt butter in a large saucepan; blend in flour, salt, pepper, and basil. Stir in chicken broth. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until mixture is thickened. Remove from heat and add chicken. Cook and drain noodles according to package directions. Mix cottage cheese with beaten egg and spinach; set aside.
Place 1/3 of the chicken mixture into a lined (or disposable) 9X13 baking dish. Top with half the noodles, half the cottage cheese mixture, and half the mozzarella. Repeat. Top with the last third of the chicken mixture. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Freeze.
To serve: (If not already in one, place in 9x13 dish.) Thaw completely. Bake 45 minutes at 375 degrees until bubbly. Remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes before serving.
Notes: I used bottled chicken, which made it a little less exciting for me. I also wanted a bit more flavor so I upped the salt (from ¾ t) and doubled the basil in this version. I think because the bottled chicken wasn’t cooked with seasonings, it caused that flavor to overwhelm the sauce. Maybe it needed to simmer in the sauce a bit. I also halved the spinach to reduce the amount of gagging from my family. :P Perhaps you can get away with more. Not a “to die for” meal, but good. And it adds some fun variety to the standard pastas I do.

Basil Pesto

Classic Basil Pesto

1 tablespoon garlic, minced

2 cups gently packed fresh sweet basil leaves

½ cup olive oil

¼ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons raw pine nuts, toasted

½ cup grated parmesan cheese

In a food processor, pulse the first four ingredients in spurts, just until there are no whole leaves.With the machine running, pour the olive oil through the feed tube in a steady stream. Stop and scrape down sides, then pulse again (not too much because you want the texture from the leaves still). Add pine nuts and pulse again (just enough to chop them a bit), then add cheese. You can add more olive oil for desired consistency, but if freezing I usually just enough olive oil to hold it together in a chunky paste. At this point, I portion it into plastic bags to freeze. You could also portion it by freezing it in ice cube trays and then after frozen, pop them into a freezer bag.

I froze a bunch in one container to keep them a bit more uniform.

This post is to get you thinking ahead about your spring garden plans! January is always so depressing so it was fun for me to be able to pull out and enjoy a bit of summer for dinner.

So what do you do with pesto, you ask? Don't be intimidated. It sounds fancy restaurant-y, but it's a really easy way to spice up any Italian dish you make. I use it for my throw together pasta dishes (see below), but you can also use it with chicken dishes, spread it on a homemade pizza instead of marinara sauce, use it instead of mayo on a sandwich, or put it on some toasted bread with chopped up tomatoes and parmesan... mmm!