Cooking is something people do daily in one way or the other. Whatever meal we are preparing, making a ham sandwich or baking a cookie, we need a recipe to follow. At times we may not follow a written recipe because the food is something that is very easy to make and we have it memorized, like making a sandwich, but in actual fact we are still following a recipe even though it is one that is in our subconscious. People are also more health conscious nowadays. A lot of people are on a healthy diet and they want to cook healthy diet food. Most people know that a complete meal should contain every food group such as meat, carbohydrates, vegetables, fruits, and so no. The healthy diet pyramid tells you what are the acceptable ingredients you need in your recipes.
Here is a wonderful crockpot recipe for a pasta dish main course that has ingredients from many food groups. This pasta dish is chicken lasagna. The name might sound like a simple dish but it is exceptionally delicious. This recipe serves 4 people and takes approximately 5 hours to prepare. It is not hard to cook but not very easy either. However, the resulting dish is so tasty that it is well worth the effort.
Ingredients needed for the Chicken Lasagna
You will need approximately 1 pound of cooked, shredded chicken breasts or more if you like more meat in your lasagna. Then, you need 1 large onion, finely chopped, 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped, 2 jars (17 oz.) of spaghetti sauce, 1 package (18 ounce) “no-cook” lasagna noodles, 1 package (9 oz.) of shredded mozzarella cheese, 1 container (9 oz.) of ricotta cheese, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup milk, and 1 egg. Now, if you have your favorite vegetables, such as eggplants, you can add some too but make sure they are finely chopped.
Making this Chicken Lasagna in a Crockpot
First you may want to brown the onions, any other vegetables, and garlic in a non-stick pan. Then you can add the spaghetti sauce and mix everything together very well. In a separate bowl, you can mix the cheeses, milk and egg. Grease the crockpot a little. Place 1/4 of the meat sauce mixture in the bottom of the crockpot then, 1/3 of a layer of noodles. You can break the noodles so that they fit into your crockpot. After that, you can place approximately 1/3 of the cheese mixture on top. Then, repeat the process of: sauce, noodles, cheese for two more layers. Put the remaining meat sauce on top. Cook in the crockpot on low for approximately 6 hours until the noodles are soft.
