Using What You Have on Hand

 

The other night I made The Pioneer Woman Sour Cream Noodle Bake for dinner. It actually is one of our favorites, but I ended up cooking too many egg noodles. Not wanting to be wasteful I googled what else I could make with egg noodles. 

I found a recipe on Yummly for Broccoli Chicken Casserole with Egg Noodles. As it turned out I had all the ingredients on hand. This was partly due to me cooking chicken breasts in the crockpot and then shredding them, and freezing them for later. 

I’ve found that a large pack of chicken breasts can make enough chicken for several meals. Usually each chicken breast is huge, and shreds easily after being cooked in the crockpot. I season the chicken with salt, pepper and Season All, and then add a little broth (chicken or veggie) to keep it moist. I cook on high for four hours, and shred it in the crockpot with two forks. Then I portion them into quart size freezer bags, and write the date with a Sharpie. This way I’m all set to quickly defrost them when needed. 

This recipe called for shredded chicken, cooked egg noodles( which I pulled out of the freezer, also),a can of cream of chicken soup, sour cream, cheddar, milk, onion powder, s & p, and some broccoli which I had in the freezer as well. Even though the broccoli was florets I go ahead and trim off the stalks. ( Those go to the chickens.)

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, and sprayed a square baking pan. I mixed the egg noodles, chicken, the can of soup and a half a can of milk, with about a quarter cup of sour cream. I sprinkled on the seasoning ( about a tsp of onion powder and the s& p to taste) I added the broccoli and covered the casserole with grated cheddar. 

I cooked it I for around twenty minutes until the cheese was melted. I must say this was absolutely delicious, and I will definitely be making it again. Besides that it looked really pretty coming out of the oven. 

If you try it let me know what you think.