When I asked Facebook fans the other day about the possibility of me posting a new casserole recipe, I received an overwhelming response. It seems that there are a lot of casserole-lovers out there! I live in San Diego- not really the Casserole Capital of America. People here eat grilled chicken, tofu hot dogs and salad with no dressing. Casseroles are among the evils that aren’t spoken here in SoCal. Whatever. I eat casseroles. Must be because all of my distant Swedish relatives live in Minnesota, where comfort food is more welcome. It’s in my genes. And probably my jeans too. The good news is that I lightened up this Chicken Spaghetti Casserole recipe as much as I thought I could.
This is quite the cheesy casserole, and I mean that in a good way. It’s hard to lighten up on cheese since low fat cheeses do not tend to melt nicely, so I charged straight ahead and used full-fat cheese for this recipe. Don’t worry- you’ll see the calorie count in the end (which is actually not too terribly bad). And you can always use low fat cheese, if you prefer.
What ingredients do you need for Chicken Spaghetti Casserole?
Here’s what you’ll need for this recipe. Yep, we’re doing something I rarely do on my recipe site: using Cream of Mushroom Soup. If that scares you, grab my homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup recipe to use instead. If you use my homemade soup, you may not need to add much milk since it’s not a “condensed” version of cream of mushroom.
How to Make Chicken Spaghetti Casserole:
Boil the pasta, just so it’s kinda al dente (still has a slight bite to it).
Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a pan. Just a tablespoon. We don’t need a whole stick or anything like that since we’re just going to sauté the veggies in it.
Cook the veggies in that melted butter, just until they’re a little bit softened up. Here’s where you can get creative. If you don’t like my choice of veggies (or more importantly, if your family refuses to eat certain veggies), change it up and add in what you’d like.
Mix nonfat milk with fat-free cream of mushroom soup.
Pour that sauce into the veggies.
Mix it up.
Add cheese. I use extra sharp cheddar because I like that it gives a little extra bang of flavor.
It melts into the sauce nicely.
Mix in chopped, cooked chicken and the pasta.
Add some tabasco for flavor. And salt and pepper…
Pour it into a greased baking dish.
It looks pretty, doesn’t it?
More cheese. I chose Monterey Jack.
Sprinkle it on the top.
Bake it for a half hour or so, and it comes out all bubbly and hot and melty.
Dish it up and eat! There are Weight Watchers Points included at the top of this post. It’s definitely not “really” a weight watcher kind of recipe, but if you’re on that sort of a diet and you feel like splurging… at least you know the details and can plan for it. I’m a firm believer in eating what you want on a diet… normal stuff in moderation. That’s what I did with this recipe. I like to have my one serving, and that’s it! Big side salad to go with. Perfect, and it is filling and satisfying too!
Here are a few more casserole recipes you might enjoy:
Cauliflower Pizza Casserole Baked Spaghetti Casserole Cheeseburger Casserole Beef Burrito Casserole Puffed Up Pizza Casserole Cheesy Beef and Pasta Casserole
