Baked Pasta With Chicken & Mushroom In Cheese Sauce

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The secret ingreident

Roasted Garlic

This is a rich, cheese stretching, flavour-packed, ultimate comfort dish that everyone will love! Mmmm, I get hungry just thinking of it! Whenever I prepare this pasta dish my kids almost have a celebration!

I use the French classic Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic recipe in preparing this dish. I find that the flavours combine so well. That chicken preparation makes all the difference to the flavour round up… It is a bit more work, but worth the extra effort. If you cook the chicken recipe a day before then you can use its leftovers to prepare the pasta. If you are in a hurry and don’t have enough time to prepare the chicken that way, then any roasted chicken recipe will do. However, the key ingredient here is the roasted garlic, because as it roasts, it sweetens and when crushed and used here it just gives that unbelievable depth. Do try it, you will know exactly what I am talking about.

Finally, might sound crazy, but I like to serve this with an acidic salad to the side. This is just a personal preference but it really works, the lemony acidic salad cuts through the cheese sauces and the crunch against the soft of the pasta is just awesome. This part is totally optional, but if you are a salad and veg freak as I am then you will love this.

Ingredients

Serves: 6
  • 2 whole roasted chicken with 40 cloves garlic (recipe on this link),
  • 1 packet pasta (or homemade Gluten-free pasta recipe in the video below)
  • 200g fresh mushrooms, cleaned & quartered
  • 100g Mozzarella cheese, grated
  • 3tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 tsp oregano
  • 2 cloves roasted garlic, crushed
  • 1 tbsp DS Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Salt & Black Pepper to taste

For Cheese Sauce

  • 2tbsp butter
  • 2tbsp flour
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup pan juices from roasted chicken
  • Salt & Pepper to taste
  • 3 cloves roasted garlic, crushed
  • 50g grated Mozzarella Cheese
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheese

Make the chicken with 40 cloves garlic from the recipe in this link and once done, pull the chicken away from the bones in big chunky pieces and set aside. Make sure to reserve the roasting juices and the roasted garlic separately too.

Cook the pasta, drain and set aside. (You can use any pasta you like for making this dish.)

In a large pot cook 2 crushed cloves of the roasted garlic from the chicken recipe along with the quartered mushrooms in olive oil but do not brown. Once softened, remove from the heat. Add the prepared pasta to the garlic and mushrooms, mix all. Add the pulled Chicken pieces and toss gently so not to break them.

Prepare the Cheese Sauce

Make a roux: Melt the butter in a saucepan; making sure it is all melted before adding the flour. Stir in flour, salt & pepper. Cook and stir over low heat until well combined. Once combined, slowly add all the cream and 1/2 cup pan juices in a thin continuous stream constantly stirring to evenly blend the roux and cream.

Cook and stir the mixture over medium heat until thickened and bubbling across the entire surface. Add crushed roasted garlic to the mix and stir to combine. Cook stirring for 1 more minute. Add the cheeses and stir until melted and combined.

Pour the cheese sauce over the pasta mixture and stir all to combine.

Place some grated mozzarella cheese on the bottom of a deep baking dish. Top with the prepared pasta and cheese sauce. Spread all in an even layer. Top with the remaining grated Mozzarella cheese and Parmesan Cheese to cover all. Season with black pepper & oregano.

Bake in 350F-180C oven until the cheese is melted and golden brown.

Serve warm.

More recipes with cheese on these links

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