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Chicken and Vegetable White Lasagne

Italy did us a great favour when they invented the lasagne. Delicious layered pasta with meats, sauces and cheeses, crispy and tender all at the same time. Amazing! Italy did the hard work when inventing the dish, and now westerners have run with it, creating literally thousands of iterations of this dish. This is (one of) mine – Chicken and Vegetable White Lasagne. 

What makes this a “white” lasagne? It has a white based sauce (think bechamel meets velouté) as opposed to a tomato based sauce. 

It has beautifully cooked chicken thigh meat, baby spinach, caramelised mushrooms, tender capsicum in a delicious cheesy sauce. It’s not a hard recipe by any means, it just takes a bit of time to cook the ingredients separately, then assemble and cook the lasagne. It’s the perfect weekend project. 

First step of the filling involves cooking the thighs (kept whole) in a frypan. I find cooking them whole, and then cutting up the thighs after yields a juicer end product. So after they’ve cooled for awhile, you dice these up and add them to your big bowl. Then you cook off the mushrooms until nicely caramelised, then add those to the big bowl too. Now, normally I would season the mushrooms with salt to help them release their held water, but don’t do it. There are some salty elements like stock powder and parmesan in this recipe, so no extra salt is needed.  Then cooking the onions, garlic, capsicum and spinach, in the big bowl they go. You mix all of these ingredient together in your large bowl, and this gets known as the “filling”. 

Next up – sauce. Melt the butter, add the flour to make a roux. Cook the roux out for 1 minute. Add all the milk, and mix well to prevent lumps. Add all your spices, seasonings, stock powders and of course the yummy parmesan. Once this has come come to a boil and has thickened, it’s done. 

Now comes the fun part, the assembly. You definitely need plenty of room for assembly, so I recommend taking over the kitchen table if you can. You’ll need your lasagne pan, the sauce, the filling, the mozzarella and of course the sheets of pasta. I also use a pair of kitchen scissors to help cut the pasta sheets into the shape I need for my pan. I also use an off set spatula to spread my sauce and filling and help keep my layers nice and flat. 

Start with a thin layer of sauce on the bottom to start with (this will stop the bottom layer of pasta sticking to the pan), then pasta, then filling, then sauce, then cheese (save a good third of the cheese just for the top layer) and then pasta, then filling, and so on. You get it. The top 2 layers should be sauce and cheese so that you get the nice crispy cheese topping. Bake the lasagne in the oven til hot, bubbling and the cheese has gone nice and golden. 

IMPORTANT! Once the lasagne is cooked and you remove it from the oven let it sit for at LEAST 15 mins. In this time the lasagne will settle and firm up a bit. If you try to cut it straight away it will be like a molten lava oozing everywhere. While still delicious, it doesn’t look that good on the plate. In those 15 minutes, I usually whip up a quick side salad and garlic bread to accompany the lasagne. 

This freezes a dream, and I love putting the excess into the freezer for when I’m not in the mood to cook. 

I really hope you try and enjoy this recipe! – Shaz x

Chicken and Vegetable White Lasagne

Sharon Green
Tender juicy chicken, golden mushroom, sweet capsicum and delicious spinach in a delicious creamy, cheesy sauce, in layers of cooked pasta.
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Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Assembly Time 15 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine Italian, western
Servings 8 serves

Equipment

  • 1 large frypan
  • 1 large lasagne dish approx. 23 x 33 cm / 9 x 13" 
  • 1 big bowl (3 litres at least)

Ingredients
  

Chicken

  • 1 kg/2.2 lbs chicken thigh fillets skinless/boneless kept whole
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp pepper

Mushrooms

  • 20 grams/0.7 oz butter
  • 300 grams/10.5 oz mushrooms sliced

Veggies

  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 1 onion finely diced
  • 4 garlic cloves minced/crushed
  • 1 red capsicum (bell pepper) diced
  • 250g/8.8oz baby spinach

Sauce

  • 60 grams/2.1 oz butter
  • ¾ cup flour
  • 1.5 litres whole milk
  • 3 tbsp chicken stock powder continental
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • ½ tsp dried thyme
  • 1 tsp dried parsley
  • ½ tsp pepper fresh ground
  • 100 grams/3.5oz parmesan cheese

Lasagne Ingredients

  • 1 packet of fresh lasagne sheets 375g
  • 400g/14 oz mozzarella shredded

Instructions
 

  • Heat a frypan over medium heat. Salt and pepper the thigh fillets, then add to hot pan. Cook on both sides until just cooked through, then remove to a plate to cool.
  • Add butter to the frypan, on high heat. As soon as it is melted add all of your mushrooms, and sauté then until they are a nice golden brown. This may take some time, as the mushroom will first release their liquid before bowing occurs. Once browned, remove from frypan into your big bowl.
  • Add oil to frypan on med-high heat and then add the onions. We want to soften the onions but not brown them, after about 4 minutes, add the garlic. Let that cook for about 1 minute, then add in the red capsicum. Let that cook for about 3-4 minutes, then add the spinach. Cook the spinach down until it has all wilted. Add this vegetable mix to your mushroom in your big bowl.
  • By now your chicken should be cool enough to handle. Cut it into small bite size pieces, and add to the vegetable bowl. Mix this bowl well, so everything is evenly dispersed. This mixture will be known now as "the filling"
  • For the sauce, melt the butter in your large frypan. Add your flour and mix well with a whisk for about 1 minute. Then add all 1.5 litres of COLD milk to the pan, in 1 go, stirring well to prevent lumps. Stir til thickened. Add spices, chicken stock powder and parmesan. Once this is thick and bubbling remove from heat.
  • To start to assemble the lasagne, I take over the kitchen table, I set up all my ingredients around me in a half circle with the lasagne tray in the middle. You'll have the "filling", "the sauce", the cheese, the pasta and the lasagne tray. I also use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut up the fresh pasta into my desired size.
  • At the bottom layer of the lasagne, smear a small amount of sauce, then add a layer of pasta sheets. I then add a layer of filling, then sauce, top with some of the cheese, then start again with the pasta sheets. Keep continuing the layers until you use all of your ingredients up. Make sure you save some cheese to put on the top layer, you want it to be golden and cheesy.
  • Bake for 35 minutes (or until hot and bubbling and the cheese is a golden brown) at 180℃/355℉.
  • Once removed from oven, let it sit for 15 minutes undisturbed before slicing and serving. This allows the lasagne time to settle and is less likely to collapse everywhere when serving.
Keyword chicken, pasta