A good pasta bake is one of those recipes worth having up your sleeve when you need to turn a few everyday ingredients into a dinner that will feed everyone. Add some cooked chicken, a vegetable or two and a creamy sauce, and suddenly leftovers can become an entirely new meal.

That’s exactly how this Creamy Chicken & Broccoli Pasta Bake came together. I had cooked chicken ready to use after slow cooking the two whole chickens I picked up for $22, and I wanted one of the four dinners to be something really simple and comforting.

The chicken is mixed with pasta and broccoli in a creamy sauce made with cream cheese, sour cream and Parmesan. Then the whole lot goes into a casserole dish and gets topped with grated cheese and buttery crushed crackers before baking.

It’s not complicated or fancy, but that’s exactly the point. This is an easy family dinner that makes good use of cooked chicken and stretches it with pasta and broccoli so there’s plenty to go around.

Watch the Video

This Creamy Chicken & Broccoli Pasta Bake is one of the four family-sized meals I made after finding two whole chickens on special for $22.

In the video, I start by putting both chickens into the slow cooker. Once they were cooked, I removed the meat and saved the carcasses. I explain how I then slow cooked those carcasses overnight to make a simple homemade chicken stock.

Rather than simply serving the cooked chicken as it was, I wanted to see how many different family meals I could turn it into. I made:

• Chicken & Vegetable Frittata
• Crispy Chicken Taco Bake
• Marry Me Chicken Gnocchi Soup
• Creamy Chicken & Broccoli Pasta Bake

You can watch the full video on my YouTube channel to see how I used one good supermarket special as the starting point for four very different dinners.

More Meals from the Two-Chicken Challenge

If you want more ideas for stretching cooked chicken into another family meal, have a look at the other recipes from this challenge:

• Chicken & Vegetable Frittata
• Crispy Chicken Taco Bake
• Marry Me Chicken Gnocchi Soup

Other Recipes You May Like

If easy, comforting family dinners are your kind of cooking, you may also like:

• Slow Cooker Comfort Pork Chops
• Country Chicken Casserole
• Thai Red Chickpea Veggie Curry
• Tuna Mornay

Recipe Card

Creamy Chicken & Broccoli Pasta Bake

Serves: Approximately 6
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: Approximately 25–30 minutes
Total Time: Approximately 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 cups diced cooked chicken
• 250g pasta, cooked
• 1 head broccoli, cut into florets
• 3–4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 × 400g can cream of chicken soup
• ½ block cream cheese, softened
• ½ cup sour cream
• ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• Juice of ½ lemon (approximately 1 Tbsp)
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 cup grated cheese

For the Topping

• 1 packet Ritz crackers, crushed
• 25g butter, melted

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions until just tender. Drain and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine the cooked chicken, pasta, broccoli, garlic, onion powder, cream of chicken soup, cream cheese, grated cheese, sour cream, Parmesan and lemon juice.
4. Season with salt and pepper and mix until everything is evenly coated in the creamy sauce.
5. Transfer the mixture to a large casserole dish and spread evenly.
6. Combine the crushed Ritz crackers with the melted butter.
7. Sprinkle the buttery cracker crumbs over top.
8. Bake uncovered at 180°C for approximately 25–30 minutes, or until piping hot throughout and the topping is golden.
9. Allow to sit for a few minutes before serving.

What to Serve with Creamy Chicken & Broccoli Pasta Bake

Because you’ve already got chicken, pasta and broccoli in the casserole, this can quite happily be served as a complete meal on its own. If you’d like something alongside it, try:

• A simple green salad
• Steamed green beans
• Garlic bread
• Homemade bread rolls
• Roasted vegetables

Stacey’s Kitchen Tips

• Don’t overcook your pasta. Cook it until just tender as it will continue to soften while the casserole is in the oven.
• Soften the cream cheese first. This makes it much easier to combine evenly with the other ingredients. Just take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before you need to use it.
• Save leftover cooked chicken. Pasta bakes like this are an easy way to turn a relatively small amount of chicken into a generous family dinner.
• Don’t skip the lemon. That small amount of acidity helps cut through the richness of the creamy sauce.

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Variations & Substitutions

• Broccoli: Cauliflower would work well in place of some or all of the broccoli.
• Pasta: Use whatever short pasta you have available. Penne, spirals, macaroni or bow ties would all work.
• Cream cheese: Full-fat cream cheese will give you the creamiest result but use whichever variety you normally buy.
• Crackers: If you don’t have Ritz crackers, use another plain savoury cracker or breadcrumbs.
• Chicken: Leftover roast chicken or store-bought rotisserie chicken can be used.
• Vegetables: Add frozen peas, corn or spinach if you have vegetables that need using.
• Cheese: Use your usual grated cheese. Tasty, Colby or cheddar-style cheeses would all work.

Storage, Freezer & Make-Ahead Notes

Storage: Allow leftovers to cool before transferring them to an airtight container. Keep refrigerated for up to 3 days. Reheat individual portions until piping hot throughout.

Freezing: I haven’t tried freezing this casserole yet. So I am unable to make recommendations as of yet.

Make Ahead: You can assemble the casserole earlier in the day and refrigerate it until you’re ready to bake. Leave the cracker topping off until just before it goes into the oven so it stays crisp.

Reheating: Reheat leftovers in the microwave for a quick meal, or cover and warm in the oven. If the pasta has absorbed some of the sauce, a small splash of milk or cream can help loosen it again.

Final Thoughts

Pasta bakes are particularly useful when you’re trying to stretch ingredients because the meat doesn’t have to be the biggest part of the meal. Three cups of cooked chicken might not look like an enormous amount on its own, but once you add pasta, broccoli and a creamy sauce, it becomes a generous casserole.

I also like that this is quite different from the other dinners I made with the same batch of chicken. We’ve gone from taco flavours to a creamy gnocchi soup and now to a crunchy-topped pasta bake, which was exactly what I wanted to achieve with this challenge.

It’s also one I’d happily make outside of the challenge whenever there’s leftover cooked chicken in the fridge. Sometimes the most useful recipes are simply the ones that help you turn what you already have into tomorrow night’s dinner.