Best Chicken Tetrazzini Recipe

This Baked Chicken Tetrazzini is classic comfort food at its best. This recipe is sure to be a family favorite dinner at your house!

Have you had chicken tetrazzini before? Put simply, it’s chicken and mushrooms with pasta in a cheesy, creamy sauce. Basically, it’s all my favorite things in one delicious pan.

One of my goals for 2017 is to get my kids to eat more grownup food. I’m not talking about caviar here. I’m talking about eating whatever I make for Matt and I for dinner instead of mac and cheese and quesadillas seven nights a week. I figured a good place to start would be this creamy, wonderful Chicken Tetrazzini.

You might look at that and see pasta and chicken baked into a creamy sauce. My kids see mushrooms and general unfamiliarity. I made this dish early in the day for photos and gave them a few hours of notice that they would be eating a new kind of pasta. “It’s basically like mac and cheese with chicken in it,” I said. “There are mushrooms, but you can pick them out if you want.” They were surprisingly on board.

You know what? They ate it! Liked it even! My 10-year-old made his own resolution to stop being such a picky eater this year, so he ate the mushrooms on purpose and congratulated himself on being so refined and adventurous. My little one did pick out the mushrooms, I think just on principle, but he ate the rest. That is a major success in my book.

What is Tetrazinni?

Tetrazzini is a baked pasta dish typically made with linguini, chicken and a white wine cream sauce, topped with shredded cheese. One of the things that makes it unique from other baked pastas is that it is made with a long noodle such as linquini or spaghetti instead elbows, shells, or penne which are more commonly used in oven baked pasta dishes.

Ingredients in Tetrazzini

When researching chicken tetrazzini recipes, I read that mushrooms, wine, and parmesan cheese were three standard ingredients. I happened to have some unused white wine in my kitchen, so I included it in the recipe. You don’t have to use the wine in this recipe if you would prefer to skip it. You could substitute chicken or vegetable broth, but I wouldn’t use cooking wine because it might make your finished dish too salty.

You should definitely feel OK making this recipe your own. If you don’t like mushrooms or want to add broccoli or only have provolone instead of Swiss cheese, GO FOR IT! As long as you have the pasta, chicken, and sauce, you can adjust the other elements to your taste.

Substitutions, Tips and Tricks for Tetrazzini

As I noted above this is an easy baked pasta recipe that can be modified and tweaked based on your preferences and what you have on hand. To help here are some of my notes on ingredient substitions along with tips and tricks.

• Pasta: Feel free to use any longer noodle you like. Linguini, bucatini, spaghetti, fettuccini and even egg noddles are all great options. I do think it is important to use a long noodle as that is part of what makes Terazzini different from a more typical baked chicken pasta.
• Vegetables: Mushrooms are the most common, but use what works for your family. Peas, broccoli, carrots, and spinach can also work.
• Cream of Chicken Soup: canned soups are a great way to easily add flavor, but if you do not have some in your pantry you can use an extra 1 cup of milk and a half cup of chicken broth or white wine. If you love mushrooms you can swap the cream of chicken soup for cream of mushroom.
• Chicken: I used diced chicken breast for this recipe but believe it or not this recipe also works great with canned chicken breast or canned tuna. Simply add one tin (12oz) of canned premium chicken breast or canned tuna in step 4 when you add the milk and canned soup. This is a quick and easy modification and the chicken pulls apart and is throughout the dish. If you want another idea for how to use canned chicken check out this chicken enchilada skillet recipe.

How to Store and Reheat

Before I get to the recipe, let’s talk leftovers for a minute. We all ate this as a leftover since I made it ahead, wrapped it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to eat that night. (I’m actually eating the rest for lunch as I write this, so I have some first hand experience with leftovers.) It definitely tastes perfectly great reheated, but the sauce does dry out a bit after it has been refrigerated and the pasta has absorbed more sauce. To combat this, just sprinkle a teaspoon or two of water over the top before popping it into the microwave. You can also use chicken stock or milk instead of water. Then, stir it all up, and the liquid will help bring the sauce back to life. Enjoy!

Best Chicken Tetrazzini Recipe

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This Baked Chicken Tetrazzini is classic comfort food at its best. This recipe is sure to be a family favorite dinner at your house!

• Total Time: 55 minutes
• Yield: 4

Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

• 8 ounces linguine or spaghetti
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into bite-sized pieces
• 8 ounces white mushrooms sliced or chopped
• 1 green bell pepper diced
• 1 teaspoon seasoned salt or to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup white wine (ok to substitute chicken broth)
• 10–12 ounces condensed cream of chicken soup (see note below)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 4 ounces swiss cheese (I use sliced cheese and chop into small pieces.)

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Instructions

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Break noodles into half or thirds, and cook the minimum recommended cooking time on the package. Drain.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
3. Meanwhile, heat butter in a deep 12″ skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken, mushrooms, and bell pepper. Sprinkle seasoned salt and pepper over the contents of the skillet. Stir and cook about 5 minutes until the bell pepper is getting tender and chicken is mostly cooked.
4. Pour in wine, and continue to simmer 3-5 minutes longer. Stir in soup and milk, and bring to a simmer.
5. Reduce heat to medium-low. Stir in parmesan and swiss cheese until melted. Sauce will still be somewhat thin at this point, and that’s OK. Stir in cooked pasta until coated in sauce.
6. Spray a 2-quart baking dish with cooking spray. (I used an 11 x 7″ baking dish.) Transfer pasta mixture to the dish, and bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Serve warm.

Notes

I like to use Pacific condensed soups because they are all natural and gluten free. If you use a different brand, look for a reduced-sodium version or reduce the amount of seasoned salt in the recipe.

These are my favorite tools for this recipe: (affiliate links)

• 12″ Stainless Steel Skillet
• 2-Quart Ceramic Baking Dish

• Author: Andi
• Prep Time: 10
• Cook Time: 45

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