Man, I sure wish I had a picture of this meal!!
Ahead of a friend's daughter coming to stay with us for a few days, while my friend travels out of town to take care of some family business, I cooked up an 8.5-lb chicken I had in my freezer. I only have 1 left of this size. These are the ones I save and cook up when friends spend the night, because it makes dinner so easy, for days!
The first night I cooked the chicken, we just shredded it and ate it with....I don't even remember, to be honest. Obviously, it was not a particularly memorable meal, haha!!
The leftover chicken was chopped up and put in the fridge.
Chicken Alfredo is one of my 10 yr old's favorite meals. The recipe I have for Alfredo sauce is absolutely to die for, especially when it's made with fresh, raw cream and homemade cream cheese! I currently don't have homemade cream cheese on hand, but I do have raw cream from Dry Valley Dairy in Forestburg! That cream is THICK and makes the best cream-based sauces!!
Last night, Chicken Alfredo stuffed shells sounded delicious. So that's what I made! I'll attempt to give you directions, and will create a recipe card when I have time:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Cook stuffed shells according to the box--I think ours said 12-14 minutes, but I cooked closer to 10 minutes to make them a little easier to handle. I cooked the whole box. We have a big family. And a guest. And big appetites. Especially when it comes to alfredo!
While the pasta is cooking, start on the Alfredo sauce:
1/2 c (or 1 stick) of salted butter
8 ozs (whole brick--cut in half) of cream cheese
1 pint cream
1/2 t minced garlic
1 t garlic powder
1 t Italian seasoning (here's a homemade recipe we use--sans the red pepper flakes)
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1 c grated or shredded parmesan cheese
Add butter, 4 oz of cream cheese, and cream to 2 qt sauce pot. Cook over medium heat, and whisk until melted.
Add minced garlic, powdered garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Whisk until fully smooth.
Add parmesan cheese and whisk again until smooth
Bring to a simmer, and continue to cook 3-5, or until sauce begins to thicken.
At this point, the sauce is done--do what you want with it. Mix it with pasta, drink it straight from the pot, whatever floats your boat.
While the sauce is melting and the pasta is cooking, mix 3 cups of cooked and chopped or shredded chicken with the remaining 4 ozs of cream cheese.
Once the sauce is finished, scoop out about a cup, and mix it with the chicken-and-cream-cheese mixture.
Add cooked shells to 11x7 casserole dish. I worked with 1 layer at a time:
Fill shells with about a tablespoon of chicken mixture. Once the bottom of your casserole dish is full of stuffed shells, pour 1/2 the Alfredo sauce over the shells.
Repeat. Fill shells, place in casserole dish, pour remaining sauce over shells.
Cover casserole dish with foil, and pop in oven for about 15-20 minutes or so. I mean, everything is already cooked, so this step really isn't totally necessary. But it gets everything nice and hot again, since pasta cools off so quickly.
Voila! That's it! Not only did all 12 servings of stuffed shells get entirely consumed by 2 adults, and 4 kids between the ages of 7 and 11, the kids started eating the remaining Alfredo sauce with a spoon. Legit. It's that good.
While this meal is simple, it's not particularly very quick to make, unless you do all the work in the morning, or even the night before. In that case, just pop it in the oven to reheat at 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes. Either way, this meal is well worth the effort!