I don’t know if it is a southern thing or a Texas thing, but chicken spaghetti is a thing. It is usually made with Cream of Mushroom soup, Cream of Chicken Soup and the main ingredients you would expect (chicken, noodles, etc). However, we try to make things from scratch here a lot of the time, so I found this recipe years ago and have used it ever since. My kids love it and so does Andy.
I don’t have some amazing back story to this recipe or a long drawn out way to make this perfect, but I’ll share my process. This is a little bit of a tedious recipe, but honestly it doesn’t take long to prep. For this you will be cooking it in a stockpot and then transferring it to a casserole dish to bake. It is fully cooked once you put it in the dish so really you are only “baking” it to melt the cheese and make it good and bubbly.
As a side note too…I do not have beautiful cookware and cutting boards for amazing photos. I just use what we have and share it with you! Still tastes the same. 😉 (take me to the recipe!)
First, you want to chop up your bell peppers and onions. I know most people prefer yellow onions because they are “sweet”, but Andy loves red onion so that is what I usually use. I use red bell pepper because of the sweetness, but I think green would be really good too.
The recipe calls for mushrooms but no one in my family cares for mushrooms but me. Andy is actually coming around, but I am so used to making this without the mushrooms I rarely remember to add any.
As for the chicken, I used to buy chicken thighs or breasts, cook them, then shred them. I don’t know about you but that was too much work added to this so I now buy the fully cooked rotisserie chicken at my local grocery store and pull it all off the bone. It is perfect!
Diet restrictions or special diet
Keto: For noodles use spaghetti squash but the consistency will be very different. I think it will taste really good though! I have not tried this method yet. For the flour you can use coconut flour, almond flour or any keto friendly flour they sell at the store.
Paleo: If you cannot have grain you can easily substitute for cassava flour. It did not alter the flavor whatsoever for me.
Vegan: Violife vegan cheese for me and my son who cannot eat dairy. You can use vegetable stock in place of chicken stock and dairy free milk of choice as well.
Recipe
Chicken Spaghetti
2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
2.5-3 cups dry spaghetti (I use Tinkyada GF), broken into 2 inch pieces
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup green bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 cup onion, finely diced
1/3 cup flour(I use Bob’s Red Mill GF)
1.5 cups chicken stock
1.5 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon season salt
Dash of cayenne pepper
8 oz. petite diced tomatoes
~3 cups cheddar, grated
While the chicken was cooling and in between noodle cooking (follow the instructions for al dente on your package)
- I melted the butter in a large skillet. Then, cook the bell pepper and onions until soft, a few minutes.
- Add the flour and cook, stirring for about 2 minutes. I also added the spices at this time.
- Slowly add the milk and reserved stock, whisking to make a smooth sauce, stirring over medium heat until thick. It takes several minutes. When it is thick, remove from heat and stir in 2 cups of your cheese.
- You can de-bone your chicken now and put 2-3 cups in the sauce. Cook the noodles in the chicken pot and then drain. Add cooked noodles to your sauce along with your tomatoes.
Dump everything in a casserole dish (9×13 should suffice) and top with some more cheese. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 350 until hot and bubbly.
Let me know if your family loves it as much as ours does!
