White Cheese and Chicken Lasagna
Ingredients:
chicken (I used rotisserie chicken and it was fabulously easy)
lasagna noodles
frozen spinach (thawed and squeezed dry)
butter
milk
chicken broth
onion
garlic
flour
salt
pepper
dried oregano
basil
fresh parsley
ricotta
Parmesan cheese
mozzarella cheese
Directions:
Start by bringing a large pot of water to a boil. Season it generously with sea salt and drop in the entire package of noodles. Even though you only need 9 noodles, sometimes they crack or split while they’re boiling, so I just make them all to be on the safe side. Cook the noodles for 8-10 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water.
Next get some prep out of the way and chop up a medium onion, mince the garlic clove and give a small handful of parsley a good, rough chop.
In a medium bowl, combine the chicken and the ricotta. This step wasn’t listed in the recipe directions, but I found it to be much easier to spread the mixture out over the noodles. Plus my husband isn’t a huge fan of big clumps of ricotta, and this solved that.
In a good-sized sauce pot, melt a stick of butter.
Add in the onions and garlic, cook until the onions are soft and translucent. This is my most favorite smell in the entire universe.
Now you can stir in the flour and salt. Keep stirring until it’s nice and bubbly.
Gradually whisk in the broth and the milk and stir constantly for one minute until smooth.
Lastly, add in the 2 cups of mozzarella, 1/2 cup of Parmesan, 1 teaspoon of both dried basil and oregano, then season with 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper. Once stirred and the cheese has melted, immediately remove the sauce from the heat.
Spread 1/3 of the cheesy sauce on the bottom of a lasagna pan or 13×9 baking dish.
Layer 3 noodles over the sauce.
Top with the chicken and ricotta mixture and spread evenly.
Top with three more lasagna noodles.
Drizzle with 1/4 of the remaining sauce and evenly sprinkle with all of the thawed spinach.
Sprinkle with a 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese, the remaining 2 cups of mozzarella, add the last three lasagna noodles and pour all of the remaining sauce over top.
Sprinkle with the tablespoon or so of chopped parsley and the remaining Parmesan cheese. Bake this in a preheated 350ºF oven for 35-40 minutes.
The lasagna is done when it’s all golden and bubbly. I flicked on the broiler to get some of that cheese crispy and golden, but that’s totally optional. Let the lasagna stand for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.