Chicken Lasagna Roll Ups

So I randomly concocted and made these last week for the "Thursday Night Gang."

I love my Mom's recipe for Chicken Lasagna but in all honesty it takes quite a bit of effort to do all the different layers and it is not cheap considering the 4 or 5 different cheeses the recipe calls for.

While craving that recipe I shopped my frig and pantry to come up with a very similar, bit easier, and cheaper version!

I am not one to really follow a recipe and since I kind of made this one up I was just wingin' it!

But for the sake of them being so good and the girls wanting to know how to make them anyways... I figured it was a recipe worth sharing!

So if you don't mind wingin' it, here is a rough recipe for

Chicken Lasagna Roll Ups...

First I took about 4 frozen chicken breast and threw them in a pot of boiling water.

Once the chicken was done I pulled them out of the water and diced them up on my cutting board.

You don't want big chunks but you don't want the chicken shredded either.

After chopping up the chicken I grabbed a bag of frozen spinach.

- I do not use the typical kind of frozen spinach. I just always buy a fresh bag of flat leaf spinach to add to our family's meals or salads. By the end of the week when the spinach is about to go bad, I just throw it in a Ziploc bag and freeze the remaining spinach. That way I have frozen spinach on hand to cook with the following week! (true frozen spinach just tastes dirty to me!)

Dice up the frozen spinach ( I used about half a bag... maybe 3 or 4 cups) and add it to the bowl of chopped chicken.

Then throw in a whole container of ricotta cheese. This makes the chicken/spinach mixture turn into a paste... which is exactly what you want!

Once you have mixed your three ingredients together (chicken/spinach/ricotta cheese) - then add about two handful of mozzarella or Italian style cheese, about a half cup of Parmesan cheese (all I had on hand was the stuff in the shaker!) and salt and pepper to taste. Oh... and lots of garlic powder!!!

Your mixture will then look like this...

Next, Boil/Cook up a box of lasagna noodles. (actually, you should probably have the noodles boiling while you are making the chicken mixture.)

Once the noodles are done, start laying some out length wise on your cutting board. (you want to make sure you use the best ones. The ones that are completely in tact with no rips... so be careful or they won't roll up.)

Then just take a handful or so of the chicken mixture and start spreading it down the noodle. I did this whole step by hand... way easier.

Like this...

Then roll those babies up!

As you are rolling if the mixture starts coming out the sides just start smushing or tucking it back in as you roll! You will quickly get a feel for how much mixture is too much. Just adjust according to what works for you.

Once they are rolled just start placing them in a sprayed baking dish.

 My mixture made exactly one dozen lasagna roll ups!

Then just take one jar of Alfredo sauce and pour the whole thing over the roll ups. To thin the sauce so it didn't get so pasty while baking, I added half of a small container of heavy whipping cream and poured that right over the top of them as well. (see the pan in back)

And that was it!

I covered the whole thing with tin foil and baked it at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes pull it out of the oven, uncover, and sprinkle with the remaining bag of Italian style shredded cheese. Put it back in the oven and bake for a remaining 15 minutes till the cheese is melted and bubbly!

And in typical fashion... I forgot to take a picture of them once they came out of the oven!

With in minutes they were plated and served up to our hungry Thursday night crowd with a Caesar salad and garlic bread!

They were completely random, completely thrown together, but completely delicious!!!

Next time you are lookin' for a quick but fancy lookin' meal... give this one a try!

The ingredients are nothing fussy and the recipe itself is pretty simple!

I realized I hadn't posted a good recipe in awhile so I thought this one seemed fit!

As usual... hope you had a great weekend and let me know if you end up giving this one a try!

Happy Monday!

Chat later,

Jen