This dish is adapted from Coby's Corner. Her recipe uses bacon, chicken, alfredo sauce and mozzarella cheese. Well, I had the chicken and alfredo sauce. Then I added something salty like bacon, the ham. Swiss cheese goes great with ham, so I added that. With items bought on sale a couple of weeks ago at Publix, this dish was super cheap to make. We always have some meat in the freezer portioned to about 1 lb. This works out great for making casseroles because I simply heat up the baggie of meat in the microwave and throw it into the dish. If I add in the cost of the meat (bought months ago), it's only $1.50 for both chicken and ham. The pasta was a really great buy during a Publix BOGO sale and using some printable coupons- only about $0.15 a box!) I'm linking this recipe to $5 Dinner Challenge, because with sale prices, this dish is very cheap!
Ham & Swiss Pasta Bake
1/2 cup diced ham (leftovers from freezer)
1 lb diced chicken (leftovers from freezer)
1/2 box penne pasta (Mueller's WW was $0.07!)
1 jar Alfredo sauce (Classico was $0.75)
8 oz grated swiss cheese, ($1.33 at Target)
*reserve 1/4 cup for topping
1. Preheat oven 350 degrees.
2. Cook penne al dente or 2 mins less (so it's slighly underdone).
3. Coat 8x11 pan with Pam's (any 2qt pan works too).
4. In a bowl, mix ham, chicken, Alfredo sauce, and 3/4 c of cheese.
5. Pour mix into pan and sprinkle remaining cheese on top.
6. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until cheese on top is bubbly.
7. Serve warm, you won't even know it's whole wheat!
You microwave plastic freezer bags? Why?? So many toxic chemicals leech from heated plastic. Just thaw it overnight.
ReplyDeleteThanks for asking! Most of the time, I freeze meats that are cooked already. So if I forget to thaw the freezer bag overnight in the fridge, I simply heat it in the microwave for very short time to get it loosened enough to pop out of the bag. Because as you know, the slow cooker won't care that it is still mostly frozen.
ReplyDeleteAs an update, we do not own a microwave anymore! So I couldn't reheat anything in plastic bags ever again.