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Why You’ll Love My Recipe
How can you go wrong with cheesy pasta? Add some chicken and some tomatoes and a thick, creamy sauce, and you may just have your new favourite pasta dish.
This recipe is up there with Creamy Three Cheese Skillet Mac and Cheese for sheer decadence! If you’d like something more tomato-based, try Old-Fashioned Tomato Mac and Cheese. Serve any of these with some Classic Homemade Garlic Bread.
Karlynn’s Recipe Notes
- Skill Level: This is a very easy recipe to make.
- Total Time: Making this will take approximately 55 minutes from start to finish.
- Variations: Try different types of cheese for this pasta. Use a bit less if you feel like it’s too much, or add even more if that’s what you prefer. Make this with a different pasta shape, use cooked beef instead of chicken, or add your favourite seasonings. Try using salsa instead of Rotel. There are so many options for customizing this meal.
- Tools Needed: For this recipe, you’ll need a large pot, a 9×13 pan, a colander, a medium pot, a whisk, a can opener, and a spoon or spatula.
What You’ll Need For Ingredients
Pasta: This recipe calls specifically for spaghetti, but you can use pretty much any pasta shape for this. Something substantial like penne or rotini, or even fettuccini would be great.
Cheese Sauce: This sauce starts with a basic roux and then gets fully loaded with Velveeta, shredded cheese, and sour cream. For the sake of adding some contrast in flavours, a sharp, aged cheddar will work best. You could also try a cheese with hot peppers in it.
Chicken: Any cooked chicken will work for this. If you have some leftover chicken breasts in the fridge or maybe a rotisserie chicken, that would work well. You could also try using a different protein, like pork or beef. Just make sure that it’s cooked before you add it.
How To Make Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti
This is a brief overview of the recipe. The full list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9×13 pan and set aside.
- Cook spaghetti in large pot, according to package directions. Drain noodles and rinse them in cold water. Add them to greased pan.
- In a medium pot, on medium heat, melt butter. Add onions and saute until soft and translucent. Add in the garlic and Italian seasoning and sauté until fragrant. Sprinkle in flour and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Whisk chicken broth into the flour and butter mixture. Add milk and keep whisking to avoid lumps. Cook at medium heat for 3-4 minutes until the sauce thickens.
- Lower heat and add Velveeta to the sauce. Stir until mostly melted. Mix in grated cheese and sour cream. Stir until smooth and creamy. Add pepper to taste.
- Add tomatoes (with juice) to the cheese sauce, mix until combined, and then add chicken. Pour the sauce over the spaghetti in the 9×13 pan and stir it in gently until noodles are coated.
- Sprinkle with cheese topping, cover with tinfoil, and bake for 40 minutes. Remove foil and broil for 5-7 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
Karlynn’s Tips and Tricks for Making Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti
Side Salad Suggestions: This pasta dish is so rich that it’s wonderful to have something lighter on the side to help cut through some of that heaviness. Try something with some acidity, like this Simple Marinated Vegetable Salad or a Greek Salad with Homemade Greek Salad Dressing. Even something simpler like a Kale Caesar Salad.
Cheese Modifications: If you feel like the amount of cheese in this dish is a bit too much for you, the simplest solution is to reduce the amount you use. Just like with almost any recipe, you can make adjustments according to your own personal taste. Finding ways to add spice and/or acidity to the sauce will also help to balance out the flavour profile. You could also sprinkle some breadcrumbs on top of that last bit of cheese, to help absorb the oil, or just skip that layer of cheese entirely.
Storage Instructions
Fridge and Freezer: Once this is fully cooled, you can store the leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge for 2-3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Reheating: Reheat the leftover pasta in the microwave in one-minute increments for a fast meal. You can also place the leftovers in an oven-safe casserole dish, top with extra shredded cheese, wrap tightly with aluminum foil, and reheat at 350°F until 165°F in the middle.
More Delicious Pasta Recipes
Are you looking for more easy pasta recipes?
Try this Old-Fashioned Tomato Mac and Cheese.
Make some Mom’s Easy Cottage Cheese Lasagna.
For extra cheesiness, try Velveeta Mac and Cheese.
There it is, everyone. An easy pasta dish loaded with chicken and cheese. Try it out and let me know what you think.
Happy Cooking!
Karlynn
The BEST Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti From Scratch
Video
Ingredients
- 12 ounces spaghetti noodles,
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cups cooked diced chicken
Homemade Cheese Sauce
- ¼ cup salted butter
- 1 cup diced white onion
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 cup diced pancetta
- 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups chicken broth
- 1 cup milk
- 8 ounces Velveeta cheese, see notes
- 2 cups shredded aged cheddar cheese
- ¼ cup sour cream
- one 284 ml can diced tomatoes and green chiles, DO NOT DRAIN!!
Topping
- pepper to taste, (this rarely needs salt!)
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Grease a deep-sided 9×13-inch baking pan and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350℉.
- Cook the spaghetti in a large stock pot according to the package directions to al dente. You want to cook the noodles until they are just soft on the outside but still have some toothsome texture on the inside. Once the pasta is done, drain it and run it under cold water to stop the cooking process. Place in the prepared 9×13 pan and toss with olive oil to prevent the pasta from sticking together if desired.
Homemade Tomato Cheese Sauce
- Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan on medium heat. Sauté the onions until soft and translucent. Add in the pancetta and sauté until heated through and sizzling. Add in the garlic and Italian seasoning and sauté until fragrant. Sprinkle the flour over the flour mixture. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring to ensure the flour doesn't stick.
- Slowly and rapidly whisk the chicken broth into the flour mixture, making sure to whisk to ensure that there are no lumps. Once the broth has been added, keep whisking and add in the milk. Keep cooking on medium heat, whisking, until the white sauce has thickened, around 3-4 minutes.
- Turn the heat to low and stir in the Velveeta. Stir until it's mostly melted, then add the 2 cups of grated old sharp cheddar and the sour cream. Keep stirring until the cheese sauce is smooth and creamy. Make sure that all of the different cheeses have melted completely. The cheese sauce will be thick at this point. Add only black pepper to taste, as this rarely needs salt.
- Once the cheese sauce is smooth, add the tomatoes JUICE AND ALL to the cheese sauce and mix in until combined, then stir in the chicken.
- Pour the cheese sauce over the spaghetti in the pan and stir gently to combine all of the ingredients and coat the spaghetti noodles completely with the cheese sauce. Sprinkle with the cheese for the topping and place in the oven.
- Cover the casserole with tinfoil and bake in the oven for 40 minutes until heated through and bubbling at the sides. If you want the cheese to brown, remove the foil and broil for 5-7 minutes to brown the top, watching it carefully.
- Remove and let sit for 5 minutes then serve hot.
Notes
- Make this ahead of time and wrap it in tinfoil and refrigerate until the next day.
- Baking this with the tinfoil on helps this to not dry out in the oven while baking!
- If you don’t want to use Velveeta, use another cup of shredded cheese instead. You WILL lose all the creaminess though!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Verlea says
I made this dish for me and my boyfriend and neither one of us liked it. It was way too thick with no flavor. I spent too much money just to throw it away.
Anonymous says
amaxing
Linda says
Horrible Recipe. Way too much cheese and I can’t even imagine using thick cream.
Mr. Kitchen Magpie says
Thanks for trying!
Kaitlin says
This was good, but I found it lacking in something too. I used all sharp cheddar instead of any processed cheese and found I needed to add salt. I ended up adding oregano too to give it more flavor. I think I’d add extra diced tomatoes and some bell pepper next time. And use regular milk instead of heavy cream since I it was a bit on the heavy side for me personally.
I appreciate recipes with no no canned cream junk, while still being quick and yummy for everyone in my family!
cynthia welzbacher says
I give it 0…sorry that was total cheese glop with no flavor.
What a waste of food. And time.
Maybe 2 cans of rotel?
Sorry, from TX and we know cheese and rotel.
I was going to try throwing in some pickled jalapenos but figured I’d wasted enough food.
Sorry for bad rating but you want the truth, right?
Karlynn says
I’d guess you didn’t use an aged cheddar, or even just a good one, it’s pretty impossible to have so little flavor with 2 cups of aged cheddar, tomatoes and juice, garlic, sour cream etc. This was bursting with flavor! It comes down to quality of ingredients for sure!