Easy Chicken Lasagna Recipe

Hey, I’m John Canel, and today we’re making some delicious, comforting chicken lasagna. Let’s get started.

Preparation

First off, set your oven to 375 °F. Take a large pot, fill it with water, salt it, and bring it to a boil. As soon as your water’s boiling, add about nine lasagna noodles. We want these to be al dente so they’re not fully cooked; they’ll finish cooking and absorb delicious flavors when they’re in the oven. The recipe needs nine, but I would do a couple more just in case there’s a problem. Those noodles are pretty big, so baby them a bit to make sure they all go in the pot and nothing sticks.

Knife Work

There’s a tiny bit of prep work to do while those noodles cook. Grab a large onion and give it a good dice. If you find making food to be a bit of a chore, I understand, but one thing you could work on is knife skills. If you can chop things quicker, dinner will come together fast. Many ways to do this, but if I’m cutting an onion: vertical slices, then change direction, and you get a really nice dice. Grab a minimum of four garlic cloves. I took the skins off, and these are ready to pass through a garlic press. If you don’t have one, give them a nice mince and set aside.

This chicken lasagna is hearty, silky, delicious, and of course there’s a lovely cream sauce to tie everything together. Our prep work’s all done, so now we’re going to move to the stove. Grab ¼ cup of butter and a large skillet, and let’s get to work.

Cook the Noodles

My lasagna noodles are nice and al dente after about 5 minutes, but it totally depends on the type of pasta, so read the package. I drained these and I’m rinsing them under some cold water just to stop the cooking and so they don’t stick together. Set those aside and onto our cream sauce.

Make the Cream Sauce

Pop your large skillet onto medium heat. We’re going to add ¼ cup of butter right now. Once your butter’s melted, add the onion as well as the minced garlic. This will cook for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it’s nice and softened. I love this—it’s one of those comfort classics. It makes a big portion, lasts a while, and everybody loves it. Chicken lasagna is one of my favorites because it has that lovely creaminess, and the chicken just tastes great in there. A lot of times meat lasagnas don’t heat up the right way; they’re a little bit too acidic or kind of flat. This has a nice balance of flavors, and I love the creaminess in there.

After about 3 minutes, once your onions are softened and your garlic is fragrant, measure out ½ cup of flour and sprinkle that in. Continue to cook for a minute. Let the flour totally coat the onions. You’re going to cook the flour for 3 minutes while stirring constantly, and then we can add our liquids in. We’re going to add 2½ cups of chicken broth right now; drizzle it in as you mix, and 1½ cups of milk as well. Mix that up.

To season this, I’m adding ½ teaspoon of dried basil, 1½ teaspoons of salt to get started, and ½ teaspoon of cracked black pepper. My sauce has come to a simmer; it’s time to whisk, whisk, whisk for about 4 to 5 minutes until it’s nice and thick. My sauce has thickened up nicely. Now I’m going to add ¼ cup of Parm; just whisk that in and keep whisking for about a minute until it’s all nice and melty. My Parm’s all melted in; I’m going to take this off heat, and we’re going to make our ricotta mixture now.

Make the Ricotta Mixture

This ricotta mixture is so delicious. I love ricotta in anything—dessert or savory. We need 10 oz of thawed spinach, and there’s some water in here that’s not delicious, so let’s pop that onto a paper towel and just drain it into the sink. So much water! Much better. You could even use a cheesecloth for this, or a clean tea towel or paper towels. This reminds me of making spanakopita: you have like a massive mountain of spinach and you end up with like a tiny little bit. All right, let’s break this up because it got pretty compressed.

To this large bowl of spinach, we’re going to add a 15 oz (425 g) container of ricotta cheese—full fat, please—2 cups (224 g) of shredded mozzarella, and ¼ cup of Parm. I’m also adding 2 tablespoons of freshly chopped parsley. I like to use the flat-leaf because it’s less waxy and has more flavor—a nice vegetal flavor. ¾ teaspoon of salt helps just balance this out, ½ teaspoon of dried basil (you could use fresh basil if you wanted to, by the way), and ¼ teaspoon of black pepper. One egg to bind them all. Now you’re just going to mix and mush together with a spatula. Mmm, this—you can tell it’s going to be delicious. You could add so many flavors to this if you want. I wouldn’t mind a tablespoon of lemon zest. When you layer things in, you can add the things you love, too, so later on if you wanted to you could have a layer of sautéed mushrooms or marinated artichoke hearts. Really, anything delicious is going to go in this pretty well.

My ricotta mixture is all mixed up, so grab a 9×13-inch casserole dish and we’re going to start assembling.

Assemble the Lasagna

Grab about ½ cup of your white sauce and spoon that onto your casserole dish—it’s our first layer. This is going to prevent the noodles from sticking to the bottom of your casserole dish—very important. I definitely used more than ½ cup for the first layer; I just wanted to have like a thin layer at the bottom. Now we’re going to place three lasagna noodles onto our white sauce: one, two, and three. We’re going to divide our ricotta mixture in half roughly and spread half of it onto our noodles. Using your hands is going to be pretty easy here, so just have clean hands and use them as your tool.

I wouldn’t say chicken is the star of this dish, but it is called chicken lasagna. You want 4 cups of shredded chicken. Probably easiest just to grab a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket, strip it, shred the meat up, or you can have boiled or baked chicken breast and just shred that, too. I have a family that only likes white meat; I’m the only one that likes dark, so I did the chicken-breast option today. Grab 2 cups (half of your chicken) and sprinkle that over the top. Ladle about a third of the cream sauce over the chicken. Now the cream sauce is really flavorful, so it’s going to add a lot to the chicken. Honestly, if you use a rotisserie chicken, I think the meat’s going to have more flavor, too, or just really season your chicken breasts if you’re making them.

Three more noodles over the top: one, two, and three. If you ever have an afternoon to yourself and you want to make something ahead of time, this is a great idea, by the way. The rest of the ricotta is going to go on now, so plop that on. This lasts up to 3 months in your freezer, so after baking it you can have individual portions wrapped and ready, or just the whole casserole dish. If you’re making this, it’s actually really easy to double the recipe and make two: one to enjoy now and one to have later—that’s my mom’s secret to always being prepared for guests. Spread the ricotta mixture into an even layer; once again, an offset spatula makes this really easy. Now sprinkle the rest of the chicken over the top. I’d point out that this is a very American version of lasagna; it is not a traditional thing you’d find in Italy, but that’s okay—it’s an homage. Another third (or half) of the remaining white sauce now gets drizzled over the chicken.

Three more noodles go on top, and by the way, for this recipe you shouldn’t use the no-boil, ready-to-use lasagna pasta; make it yourself—it’s going to work better. Now we’re going to add the remaining cream sauce over the lasagna noodles. This cream sauce does not look pretty, but it is so delicious. Smooth that into an even layer. The crowning glory on top of our chicken lasagna is 168 g (1½ cups) of shredded mozzarella. Just get a nice even layer on top. This will be cheesy, bubbly, and delicious. If you wanted, you could sprinkle a little bit of extra Parm on top for some added flavor.

Bake

We’re going to cover this with foil right now. Our lasagna’s ready to go into the oven: 375 °F for 25 minutes, then remove the foil and bake an additional 20. If you want a golden top, just broil it for about 3 minutes. In you go! Allow to cool for 15 minutes, give it a slice, and just like that it’s cheesy, delicious, and ready to enjoy. It’s creamy, dreamy, hearty, and delicious. I love the play of flavors—it’s something you can eat the whole portion of, ask for more, and still feel good about it. I hope you get a chance to make this delicious recipe.