Easily prepared, tasty, and creamy. Family and friends will be amazed by this meal-in-one. This recipe makes a lot, so freeze some or cut it in half.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 12 servings |
Ingredients
- ½ cup seasoned bread crumbs
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 (16 ounce) box penne pasta
- 6 cups cubed cooked chicken
- 4 cups shredded Italian cheese blend
- 3 cups fresh baby spinach
- 1 (15 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
- 1 (15 ounce) jar Alfredo sauce
- 1 (15 ounce) jar pesto sauce
- 1 ½ cups milk
Instructions
- Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9×13-inch baking dish. Combine the bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil in a small bowl until evenly moistened; set aside.
- Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Once the water is boiling, stir in the penne, and return to a boil. Cook the pasta uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta has cooked through, but is still firm to the bite, about 11 minutes. Drain well in a colander set in the sink.
- Meanwhile, combine the chicken in a bowl with the Italian cheese blend, spinach, tomatoes, alfredo sauce, pesto sauce, and milk. Stir in the pasta once done, and scoop into the prepared baking dish. Top with the bread crumb mixture.
- Bake in the preheated oven until bubbly and golden brown on top, 40 to 45 minutes.
- I also make my own Alfredo sauce and use 2 cups in place of the jarred sauce.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 760 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 41 g |
| Cholesterol | 114 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 45 g |
| Saturated Fat | 18 g |
| Sodium | 1210 mg |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Fat | 47 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I did use half the amount of pesto. This was amazing and it freezes well too.
I halved the pesto.
My husband had seconds. he called the best “F’ food that I had made.
Super EASY and SUPER tasty. My 21 year old LOVES it and he is so picky. My 26 year old nephew went to the store the next day and called me to get the ingredients after he polished off a whole casserole himself. lol. My son will be by this evening to have supper with us and guess what he requested. Yep this is the BEST. We will service it with garlic bread and salads tonight. Absolutely hands down a new family favorite. Ooey Gooey Cheesy DELISH!
This recipe was very easy to make and taste great. I was worried about so much pesto because the Kars in the store are usually half the size and a lot of pesto upsets my stomacheven though I love pesto. I used chicken thighs because that’s what I had in the refrigerator. I will make this again but next time I will probably half it because it made a lot and my family won’t eat leftovers. Great recipe!
I made it according to the recipe but did use 6.3 oz jar of pesto. We loved it!
Enough for a family of 6 with leftovers or to share at a potluck. I add chopped Roma tomatoes instead of canned. Delicious!
Made with home made Alfredo Sauce. Very rich dish, Very good.
I love this recipe!!!! I make for my family, my daughters dance team on game days!!! Everyone loves it!!
LOVED it!! From kiddos to grandma!!! I used chicken tenders (cut out the middle stringy thing). Our Safeway grocery store carried every ingredient. We used mini penne noodles. YUMMY!! YUMMY!!
Delicious! I deviated from the recipe a little. I used chickpea spiral noodles (that’s what I had) cooked for 8 min. I had about 3/4 of a Trader Joe’s pesto and only parm cheese. I used about 1 handful for mixing in with everything and another handful for topping. I used two big handfuls of spinach, one can of petite diced tomato, and totally forgot the milk and didn’t have any bread crumbs. Everything else was the same! I’m glad I didn’t use any milk. It was the perfect amount of sauce. The pesto and Alfredo mixed together is so good. Loved this dish!
Made the exact recipe, good, but a little too much pesto. Tried again with sun dried tomato pesto. Much better.
I used shredded chicken, maybe 5 cups, which seemed to plenty. This does make a lot, we ate an 8 inch square pan and I put two more small pans in the freezer. Which is unfortunate because I found this casserole to be a disappointing use of ingredients.
It was ok. I feel like it needed more seasoning. Next time I will add some sautéed onion, maybe mushrooms, maybe bacon. I halved the recipe and still used almost a full jar of the Alfredo. I don’t see it fitting in a 9×13 as written either.
I liked this but everyone else thought it had too much pesto in it. You definitely have to like pesto to like it.
Fantastic. My whole family enjoyed this. Made following the recipe. Added to the rotation.
I added sautéed mushrooms & red peppers for nutrition and color. Hubby liked it but I thought It was too dry even though I added extra diced tomatoes (not drained). Maybe I had too much pasta in relation to the Alfredo sauce, pesto & cheese. I probably won’t try this again.
Did well to cut in half. Still made so much. Really good.
My family enjoyed this one. All the kids and hubby asked for seconds. I made a few adjustments which is why I removed one star. The amount of pesto is too high. I used almost 2 lbs of pasta and still didn’t use 15 oz of pesto. I did not double all the sauces or the cheese and it still came out perfect. If I had made as is, there would have been too much liquid. So if you want to use this recipe for big batch cooking, just make sure you taste everything as you go to adjust for your family. Also, I baked mine at 400F for 30 minutes and it was perfectly golden brown & bubbly.
One of my favorites!!!! I have a family a of 5, and with my neighbor and his daughter, more times than not, 7. This is always more than enough. I highly recommend for potlucks and my go-to for Meal Trains.
Loved it! This was so good! As someone who loooves pesto I must say that I did only use one 8oz. jar and it was plenty. Definitely needs to go into two baking dishes. (Makes a ton.) But this worked well for me as I added the spinach to one and left the other without so my kids would actually eat it. Easy to fix and everybody liked it. Its a keeper!