Chicken Pie or Pasta Bake?

by Elizabeth Kelly

This week I thought I would try something with pasta and chicken and at the same time experiment with béchamel (white) sauce, trying to spice it up without adding any salt.

What I ended up with really surprised me, or should I say I surprised me. The ratio of ingredients to sauce was perfect, the size of the casserole dish I selected was exactly right for the measurements I chose and the add-ins, while standard, were well proportioned to each other. I also found that I ended up with a lot more than I intended.

I started with 4 cups of milk thinking that was a good volume for a casserole. I was aiming in the direction of a baked pasta dish and thought I needed a topping. I tried oats. I won't try that again, I won't even describe it to you. You really don't want to know what it tasted like. Actually, it didn't taste bad but the texture, well, shoebox.

Once I had the basic volume, I selected the quantities of what I wanted to add to it. I initially selected chicken because I had some leftover in the fridge but it turned out, not quite enough so I cooked another chicken breast while I was working on the other ingredients. I added in the requisite peas and carrots, and of course, onion, and cooked about 1 cup of dried penne to al dente.

What I was ending up with was a fairly quick meal in a week where you already have pasta and chicken on the menu, just cook some extra of both and refrigerate. Since the peas and carrots were frozen, they took no extra preparation. However, if you want to use fresh, blanch them first before adding, but again, they could be leftovers. The béchamel sauce can be made up to a day ahead. Once it's thickened and the herb and spices are added, cover the surface with plastic wrap and chill. The plastic wrap will stop a skin from forming on the top of the sauce.

With all of the pieces in place, in your fridge, it's just a matter of mixing them all together in a casserole dish, covering with a lid or foil, and baking until hot and bubbly, about 40-50 minutes. The next best thing, after quick assembly is that it freezes well. I divided it into meal size servings and froze them individually, but you could easily add this to a bulk cooking weekend and freeze family size portions. I microwaved mine but you could bake family size pans from frozen, probably for about an hour to an hour and a half, or remove from the freezer to the refrigerator the night before and cut down on your baking time.

I'm not sure if I was successful making a pasta bake. It reminded me of a chicken pie, without the potatoes but it wasn't really a chicken pie either, maybe a Chicken Pie Pasta Bake.