Leftover Chicken & Spinach Lasagna

 

Looking for inspiration for that leftover rotisserie chook? There’s a million (and one) ways to use it but I was feeling like something a bit yummy this particular night and I had a couple instant lasagna sheets in the pantry, and I mean only a couple. Isn’t it funny how the makers of lasagna sheets have just too many or just too few in the box, depending on which dish you use? I never throw them out but rather keep them for ‘instant’ meals like this.

 

 

I love having these frozen spinach cubes in the freezer too. I rely on them a lot for instant meals when I’ve run out of fresh vegetables. They’re great because you only use what you need. (They can be easily made with fresh spinach too. Just blanch in boiling hot water until just wilted, blitz or chop finely and put in ice cube trays to freeze.)

 

 

Remove all the meat from the chicken and put it aside with the spinach. I can normally get 3 or 4 meals out of a supermarket rotisserie chicken including meat for sandwiches and salads. For around the $10 mark, they’re not a bad buy when you’re in a hurry.

Putting the lasagna together is really easy. Fry a medium chopped onion in some butter, add some flour and add milk or chicken stock to make a bechamel sauce.

Set aside a cup of the sauce for the lasagna topping.

Add the chicken and spinach to the bechamel sauce.

 

Assemble the lasagna by first putting a layer of the chicken mixture into the bottom of the dish and layer with the lasagna sheets. Top with the reserved cup of bechamel sauce.

 

 

Finish off with a sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese and bake until golden brown on top.

This really didn’t take any time at all. The most labour intensive part was making the bechamel sauce and that is really kind of easy. I guess the whole thing only took about 30 minutes. You could prepare something like this in the morning, pop in the fridge and bake just before dinner time.

A delicious, tasty, mid-week meal using up leftovers and bits and pieces. My kind of meal.

Leftover Chicken & Spinach Lasagna

• leftover roast chicken meat, chopped into bite sized pieces
• frozen spinach (or fresh wilted and chopped finely)
• 1 medium onion, diced
• lasagna sheets
• 2 tbs butter
• 2 tbs plain flour
• 2 cups milk or chicken stock (approximately)
• grated parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 170 deg C.
2. Fry diced onion in 2 tbs butter until translucent.
3. Stir in 2 tbs plain flour and fry until well combined with butter mixture (approx 2 minutes).
4. Pour in milk or chicken stock and keep stirring until thicken. (You may need a little more liquid if mixture is too thick.)
5. Reserve 1 cup of this sauce mixture for lasagna topping.
6. Add chicken meat and lasagna to bechamel sauce and mix well. 
7. Layer the bottom of an ovenproof dish with chicken/spinach sauce mixture.
8. Top with lasagna sheets and continue to layer.
9. Finish top layer with reserved cup of bechamel sauce and grated parmesan cheese.
10. Bake until golden on top (approximately 15 minutes).

 

Fresh tomato & beef lasagna

I make lasagna often. It’s no big deal. Just a basic bolognese sauce, layered with dried lasagna sheets and topped with bechamel sauce. I always use tinned tomatoes but if I have the excess tomatoes, I’ll make big batches of passata to use in my bolognese and other tomato based pasta sauces.

I was clearing out the fridge one day when I came across way too many tomatoes. They were getting a little soft and maybe not so nice for salads so I decided to incorporate them straight into the ground beef for the lasagna that night. It was way quicker than deseeding them, peeling them, trying to bottle or freeze them.

I roughly chopped them with onion, garlic, basil, oregano, salt and pepper (and a couple tablespoons of sugar) and then mixed them with the browned beef. That was it.

The tomato taste was lovely and fresh and made a nice sauce for the lasagna. I did overcook this one and the top got a little brown. Here’s a link to my Beef and Eggplant Lasagna that will give you quantities and the recipe for bechamel sauce. Never throw those older tomatoes away. Cook them up into a pasta sauce.