Recipe Background
Why is this called The Gathering Bake? It all comes down to how it brings everyone together. Everyone just loves sitting down at the dinner table to enjoy a cheesy, savory pasta meal, with bites of tender chicken cooked in a homemade chicken broth and plenty of butter-cooked vegetables mixed in. Of course, everything being coated in a creamy sauce makes every bite so much more delicious! The Gathering Bake will bring your taste buds together in a community of great flavor!
Why is this called The Gathering Bake? It all comes down to how it brings everyone together. Everyone just loves sitting down at the dinner table to enjoy a cheesy, savory pasta meal, with bites of tender chicken cooked in a homemade chicken broth and plenty of butter-cooked vegetables mixed in. Of course, everything being coated in a creamy sauce makes every bite so much more delicious! The Gathering Bake will bring your taste buds together in a community of great flavor!
Ingredients
- 1 (4-5-pound) whole chicken
- 4 tablespoons kosher salt plus more, to taste
- 1 bay leaf
- water to taste
- 8 ounces spaghetti broken into thirds
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 large yellow onion chopped
- 1/2 medium green bell pepper coarsely chopped
- 2 celery ribs chopped
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 (10.75-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
- 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes drained
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- hot sauce to taste
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup medium cheddar cheese shredded
Directions
- In a large Dutch oven, add the chicken, 4 tablespoons of the salt, the bay leaf, and enough of the water to cover the chicken.
- Place the Dutch oven over high heat and bring the water to a boil.
- Cover the Dutch oven and reduce the heat to medium-low.
- Simmer until the chicken is tender and the meat reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees F in its thickest part, about 1 hour.
- Transfer the chicken from the Dutch oven, reserving the cooking broth in the Dutch oven, and allow the chicken to cool completely, about 20 minutes.
- Remove and discard the bay leaf from the broth.
- Remove and discard the skin and the bones from the chicken.
- Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Lightly coat a 9x13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
- Reserve 1/4 cup of the cooking broth in a separate bowl.
- Bring the remaining broth in the Dutch oven to a boil over high heat.
- Add the spaghetti to the boiling broth and cook until tender, about 12-15 minutes.
- Drain the pasta, discarding the broth used to cook it.
- Return the cooked spaghetti to the Dutch oven.
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter.
- Add the onions, the green bell peppers, the celery, and the garlic to the melted butter and cook, while stirring, until tender, about 5 minutes.
- Add the onion mixture to the pasta in the Dutch oven.
- In a bowl, add the cream of mushroom soup and the reserved chicken broth and stir to combine.
- Add the soup mixture to the pasta mixture and stir to combine.
- Add the cooked chicken, the tomatoes, the Worcestershire sauce, the hot sauce, and the black pepper to the pasta mixture and stir to combine.
- Season the pasta mixture with the extra salt, as needed.
- Transfer the pasta mixture to the prepared baking dish, spreading it out evenly.
- Sprinkle the pasta mixture with the cheddar cheese.
- Bake until the cheese melts, about 15-20 minutes.
- Serve hot.
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