For some reason my daughter doesn’t like traditional lasagna with ground beef and marinara sauce. But she loves spaghetti with ground beef and marinara sauce. I don’t understand it but I guess kids can be hard to understand when it comes to food sometimes. Since the rest of the family likes lasagna and we always have cooked chicken on hand I came up with this chicken and spinach version a few weeks ago. As I was preparing it I realized that this dish would be a good use of Thanksgiving leftovers. I’ve written the leftover ingredient substitutes in parenthesis.
2-3 cups diced cooked chicken (or leftover turkey or ham from Thanksgiving meal)
1 cup diced veggies- onion, celery, mushrooms, carrots (dice extra when preparing dressing or stuffing)
2 cups cooked greens
1 cup chicken broth (or leftover gravy thinned back to gravy consistency with broth or water)
1/4 cup chopped parsley
One box cooked lasagna noodles, cooked al dente
8 oz cream cheese
16 oz. ricotta cheese
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Grease a 13 x 9 inch casserole dish.
Saute diced vegetables in butter or oil until lightly cooked. Add cooked greens and chopped chicken to the pot and stir to combine. Lower heat to medium-low and add broth and softened cream cheese to the cooked veggies and chicken. Stir until the cheese is melted. Remove from heat.
Reserve one cup of this chicken and greens filling for the top of the lasagna.
Stir the ricotta cheese with one cup of the mozzarella cheese and 1/4 cup chopped parsley
Layer the lasagna. Alternate layers of 4 lasagna noodles, 1/3 of the ricotta cheese mixture, 1/3 of the chicken filling. Make three layers. Then layer with one more row of noodles and the one cup of reserved chicken and greens filling sauce and the last of the mozzarella cheese.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes until the lasagna is bubbly and the cheese is browned.
