Chicken & Spinach Alfredo Lasagna

My family gathers almost every Sunday for a family dinner.  We take turns who hosts and provides the main meal and then everyone else contributes with the rest of the meal, like a bread, salad and dessert.  This is one of my favorite things to make when it's my turn.  It tastes great and has become such a comfort food to me over the years!

My family also loves it and if it has been too long since I have made it, they will even request it.  The list of ingredients aren't crazy either and I love that I can use a fair amount of baby spinach!

It isn't difficult to make, but it does take about an hour, if your chicken is already cooked.  One of my pet peeves in cooking is when recipe gives a how long it takes time, but when you look at the list of ingredients, everything is pre-cooked and pre-chopped!  Those require time and I need to know start to finish how long something takes!  So if you don't happen to have a rotisserie chicken hanging out, plan on a total of an hour and 20 minutes or so, depending on how you cook your chicken.  For me, I cook mine on the stove top, I have these pans that don't require babysitting or even any oil.
First step, get your oil boiling for the noodles and get your butter melting for the Alfredo sauce.  I like to start my sauce first thing so I can make sure it has plenty of time to melt all the Parmesan cheese.  While the water is boiling I shredded my chicken.  One day I'll try the trick of putting it in my mixer with the dough paddle but this time I just used my hands.  It worked out perfectly that I could shred it all while my water heated up.  Once it was boiling, I added the noodles and also added the rest of the ingredients for my sauce.

This isn't a traditional Alfredo sauce, in addition to the butter, Parmesan cheese and cream (I used mostly half and half to try and make it less unhealthy!) it also uses Cream of Mushroom soup.  May sound strange, but it is perfect for this dish.  While those are doing their thing, this is when I would normally chop up my onion.  I had some left from a previous recipe this time so I was saved from that step.  If you don't do this already, when ever a recipe calls for half or less of a diced onion, go ahead and chop all of it, put what you don't need in ziplock bag and freeze.  Makes the next recipe so much easier!

Anyway, back to the lasagna.  When the noodles are done, drain and rinse.  If you have lots of counter top space, you can lay out the noodles on aluminum foil until you are ready to use.  I only had so much energy so I left them in my strainer but periodically ran some cold water over them to try and keep them from sticking together.  I then heated the olive oil in a fairly large pan and once heated added the onion to get that soft before adding the garlic and shredded chicken.  Depending on how cold/hot your chicken is, you just need to stir until everything is nice and hot.  Turn to low and leave on the stove.  During all of this I have been keeping an eye on my sauce, making sure everything is melting and blending, while not burning.

Even in the pictures, you should be able to tell the difference between the blended and ready to go sauce vs the before. 

At this point, you are ready to assemble.  It is a standard assembly, alternating sauce, noodles, chicken mixture, spinach, ricotta cheese and Mozzarella cheese.   Now, if you have ever cooked with Ricotta cheese you know that first it is stupid package design, no tab to be found on that plastic covering and secondly, if you need to spread it, it doesn't spread super easy.  I try and let it get to room temperature to make it easier. 

Now for me, when given the option of spreading cheese on something like this, more is almost always better! 

This is the halfway mark so the layers get repeated.  It gets topped off with a final layer of noodles and the last of the sauce.

If you needed to make this in advance you could stop at this point, cover and refrigerate until you are ready to bake.  Just plan on a longer bake time.  It does need about an hour to bake and then top off with more Mozzarella cheese before a final 10 minutes in the oven.  It is better if you can let this set up for about 10 minutes or so before serving.

Lasagna doesn't serve up perfectly, but the more ooey and gooey it is, the better it tastes!  This dish is definitely not dry and it is full of flavor!  I like to tell myself that all that chicken, spinach and onion makes it "healthy"!
I am a big fan of leftovers and I think this one heats up perfectly for a lunch on a cold day, like today!  It's before 9:00am and I am already counting down until I can enjoy this one again!

Chicken & Spinach Alfredo Lasagna

9-12 lasagna noodles (depending on pan size)
2 10.75 oz can of Cream of Mushroom soup
1/4 c. butter
1/2 large onion, diced
5 mushrooms, diced (optional: have been meaning to add this but keep forgetting)
1 c. ricotta (could be more depending on taste)
3 c. shredded Mozzarella cheese
3 c. heavy cream (I use 1 c. cream 2 c. half and half)
1 c. Parmesan Cheese
1 Tbl Olive Oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 chicken breasts shredded (about 3-4 cups)
1 bunch of baby spinach, rinsed (I used the bagged kind)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil.  Cook lasagna noodles for 8-10 minutes, or until al dente.  Drain and rinse with cold water.
2. In a saucepan over low heat, mix together heavy cream, soup, Parmesan cheese and butter.  Simmer, stirring frequently, until well blended.
3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Cook and stir the onion in oil until tender, then add garlic and mushrooms.  Mix in the chicken and cook until heated through.  Season with salt and pepper.
4. Lightly coat the bottom of a 9x13 dish with enough cream sauce mixture to coat.  Layer with 1/3 of the noodles, 1/2 c. ricotta, 1/2 of the spinach, 1/2 of the chicken mixture and 1 c. of Mozzarella cheese.  Top with a little less than 1/2 of the cream sauce and repeat the layers.  Place the remaining noodles on top and spread with remaining sauce.
5. Bake 1 hour or until brown and bubbly.  Top with remaining Mozzarella cheese and continue baking until cheese is melted and lightly browned.

Note: can be made in advance, up through step 4.  Just allow a longer baking time.

This should have 12-15 single servings, depending on how big the slices are.  Based on 12 servings a single serving breaks down as follows:

Fat: 41.8g
Calories: 488
Cholesterol: 136 mg
Sodium: 902.3 mg
Potassium: 401.5 mg
Carbs: 8.8 g
Protein: 28.9 g