In the Kitchen with Jason: Creamy Chicken Broccoli Bake

Normally we don't post recipes that take quite a bit of time to prepare, but looking through our past recipes, we noticed a very large quantity of them were cookies or muffins and not so many of them were meals. With that said, this recipe takes about an hour to prep up and another hour to cook, but it is well worth the time spent on it. It also makes a very large pot of noodley goodness, so you'll have leftovers or can feed an entire family.

Ingredients

• 10 oz noodles
• Guess what kind we recommend... cavatappi!
• 1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 2 breasts), chopped into bite sized pieces
• 12 oz sliced mushrooms
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 prepared serving of cream of something soup
• 16 oz sour cream
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 16 oz broccoli
• If you want to use frozen broccoli, make sure to thaw it ahead of time.
• 1 cup dry bread crumbs
• 2 Tbsp melted butter

Directions

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
• Cook noodles according to package instructions
• Reserve 1/3 cup of the noodle water for later in the recipe, drain and transfer to a large bowl.
• Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.
• Add the chicken to the skillet and cook until it starts to brown and is no longer pink, about 4 minutes.
• Transfer chicken to the same large bowl as the noodles.
• The chicken may get done before the noodles, but that is fine as everything is getting mixed in this bowl eventually.
• Add mushrooms, onion, and pepper to the skillet that you cooked the chicken in and cook for about 8 minutes.
• Once the veggies are done being cooked, add to the large bowl along with the cream of something soup, sour cream, dry mustard, pepper, and broccoli.
• Mix up the ingredients in the large bowl and pour into a baking dish that will hold all of it.
• Mix the bread crumbs with the melted butter and sprinkle the mixture over the chicken mixture.
• Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
• Uncover and bake for 25 more minutes.

This recipe was one of the few recipes that I had every intention of making properly, but then I accidentally doubled the amount of bread crumbs called for but it turned out fantastic with the increased amount. The original recipe can be found here.

Please enjoy!

-Chef Jason