Chicken Tetrazzini is a big, bubbly pasta bake with a creamy cheese sauce, juicy chicken and buttery garlic mushrooms. It’s about as classic as a creamy pasta bake can get!

Chicken Tetrazzini

I call Tetrazzini an Italian pasta bake just because it sounds good to say so, but in actual fact, there is nothing Italian about this creamy-oh-so-cheesy pasta casserole other than the fact that it’s named after an Italian opera singer, Luisa Tetrazzini.

It is said that a Chef at a hotel in the States invented this dish especially for her, and you’ll never find it in a (real) Italian cookbook. But that doesn’t make this any less delicious. Juicy chicken with garlic butter mushrooms smothered in a béchamel sauce, tossed through slick pasta and baked until bubbly…. UGH! I’m torturing myself just writing about it!!

This pasta casserole bake is made from scratch. Canned soup has no place around here!!

What you need for creamy Chicken Tetrazzini Sauce

Here’s what you need to make the cream sauce for Chicken Tetrazzini: butter, flour, chicken broth/stock, milk, cream and cheese.

The basis of Tetrazzini sauce is a béchamel sauce. While a basic béchamel is made with just butter, flour and milk, for Tetrazzini, we dial up the deliciousness by adding chicken stock (for flavour), cream (for richness) and cheese (a good thing in anything!).

What goes in Chicken Tetrazzini

As for the pasta bake itself, here’s what you need:

Pasta – long strand pasta like spaghetti is traditional, but this recipe works perfectly with short pastas like macaroni, penne, ziti, rigatoni, spirals. Just avoid tiny pasta like risoni/orzo, ditalini, tiny shells or novelty pastas like alphabet pasta – they are too small;
Chicken – thighs are best because they stay juicy even after the double cook (seared then baked), but breast and tenderloin are fine too. Buying pre-cooked chicken will speed things up, but the sauce won’t be as nice because it gets a flavour boost by cooking the sauce in the same pot the chicken is seared in (the golden bits left in the pan from the chicken is a free flavour boost for the sauce);
Mushrooms – anything sliceable is fine, I’ve just used normal button mushrooms here;
Butter – used to cook the mushrooms, and also as the fat into which the flour is mixed which thickens the liquids to make the creamy sauce;
Garlic and onion – essential flavour base.

How to make Chicken Tetrazzini

Cook the chicken first because the golden bits left in the pot will dissolve into the sauce which adds a stack of flavour. The chicken doesn’t need to be fully cooked through – once chopped into small pieces, it will take mere minutes to finish cooking in the oven.

Skip the shortcut store bought roast chicken. Cooking your own is so much tastier because the sauce gets a massive free flavour boost from deglazing the pot.

After the chicken is cooked, we cook the mushrooms and onion, then mix in the flour before adding the liquids. This is an easy method to ensure your creamy sauce comes out smooth rather than with flour lumps without the need of a whisk or slowly pouring the milk in. By mixing the flour into the cooked mushrooms, it gets dispersed which makes it far less prone to lumps when the milk is added. Tip of the day!

How to tell when the béchamel sauce is thick enough

Use the “path” test (Step 5 above) – coat the back of your wooden spoon with the sauce, hold it vertically (so the sauce is dripping off it). Then use your finger to draw a line across it – it should hold briefly before the sauce runs down to cover the line up. This means the sauce is thick enough.

TIP: The sauce should not be very thick – it thickens more when cheese is added and again when baked.

Plenty of sauce – because nobody likes stodgy pasta bakes!

As with all my pasta bakes, I make more sauce than most recipes because I like my pasta bakes to come out of the oven molten and bubbling, smothered with sauce rather than a dried up stodgy block that you can cut like cake. No thank you!!! I want THIS ↓↓↓

What to serve with Chicken Tetrazzini

I’d strongly urge you to add a side of greens – have a browse through my Vegetable Sides (newly organised by vegetable!).

Then if you’re going all out, add a side of Garlic Bread or if you want to blow the cheese-meter, add a side of Cheesy Garlic Bread.

For dessert, try Tiramisu if you want to keep with the Italian theme, or if you’re going for a cosy Winter meal, make a pudding! Try one of these:

Winter Puddings and Cosy Dessert suggestions

Self Saucing Butterscotch Pudding

Bread and Butter Pudding

Chocolate Self Saucing Pudding

Apple Crumble

Sticky Date Pudding

Magic Caramel Self Saucing Baked Apples

Strawberry Crumble

Enjoy! – Nagi x

Watch how to make it

Chicken Tetrazzini (creamy chicken mushroom pasta bake)

Recipe video above. A big, creamy pasta bake with juicy chicken and mushrooms. Cheesy, hot and completely delicioius! Rumoured to be named after an Italian opera star Luisa Tetrazzini when an American Chef created this dish for her. So it's not authentic Italian - but it doesn't make this any less delicious!!

Course Mains

Cuisine Western

Keyword Chicken Pasta Bake, chicken tetrazzini, pasta bake, pasta casserole bake, tetrazzini pasta

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Servings 8 people

Calories 669kcal

Author Nagi

Ingredients

500g / 1lb spaghetti or other long pasta, cooked per packet (penne, macaroni, ziti ok too) (Note 1)

Chicken

2 tbsp (30g) butter
500g / 1lb chicken thighs , skinless boneless (Note 2)

Creamy Sauce

4 tbsp (60g) butter , unsalted
500g / 1lb mushrooms , sliced 1/2 cm / 1/5" thick
2 garlic cloves , minced
1 onion , finely chopped
4 tbsp flour
2 cups milk , any fat, any type
1 cup cream , heavy / thickened (sub more milk)
2 cups chicken stock/broth , low sodium (or water + 2 stock cubes)
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
2 cups cheese , shredded (cheddar, jack, colby - not mozz)

Cups - Metric

Instructions

Sear chicken

Sauce & pasta

Notes

1. Pasta - risoni/orzo and other tiny pasta won't create enough volume for this recipe, Either use this recipe, or cook double the amount of pasta.

2. Chicken - thighs best because they stay juicier in things like pasta bakes where they're cooked for longer than ideal. Breast and tenderloin fine too.

Can also use store bought rotisserie / roast chicken but sauce flavour won't be as good - dissolving golden bits on base of pan from searing chicken ("fond") adds extra flavour into sauce.

3. Cool pasta = absorbs less sauce while in oven, so pasta doesn't bloat and you don't end up with a thick, sauceless pasta bale.

4. Substitutions for creamy sauce ingredients:

Butter - sub margarine. Sub with olive oil + switch 1 cup of the milk for cream (if you can, to make up richness/flavour). Butter is flavour, so try not to skip this.
Flour - any type of flour fine here, white, wholemeal, self raising, gluten free. Cornflour/cornstarch gluten free sub: Mix 3.5 tbsp with splash of water and add that in with the milk. And obviously, use GF pasta!
Milk - any type. Dairy, non dairy, full fat, low fat, fresh, long life, milk powder (reconstituted). Up to 1.5 cups milk can be substituted with water.
Stock/bouillon powder or cube or seasoning instead of liquid stock/broth - use 2 cubes or 4 tsp powder, chicken or vegetable (Vegeta is my fave). Sub with 1/2 cup extra parmesan + salt to taste.
No cheese? Add 3/4 cup / 75g shredded parmesan, or 1 - 1.5 tsp chicken stock powder.

5. Leftovers - Store in the fridge for up to 4 days, reheat in microwave. Keeps better than most pasta bakes because this is saucier so you don't end up with sad dried up stodgy leftovers.

6. Make ahead / freezing: Toss hot pasta with dab of butter of drizzle of oil (stops it bloating), then let it cool. Make sauce, cool, toss with pasta and assemble pasta bake. Fridge 4 days or freezer 3 months, thaw then bake 40 minutes loosely covered with foil (remove for last 10 min). OR bake from frozen - foil covered for 50 minutes or until centre is piping hot, then remove cover and bake until cheese has golden spots.

7. Nutrition per serving. Cut 60 calories by switching cream for more milk, cut a further 75 calories by switching the cheese with 1 cup parmesan cheese (stronger flavour so you need less).

Nutrition

Life of Dozer

One of his best features. (Minus what looks like a big boogie up his nose

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