Day 14: Buffalo Chicken Lasagna

After using half of my rotisserie chicken for my pulled buffalo chicken sandwiches, I had to decide what to do with the other half. I started browsing my pins in the "For the Workin' man's skillet" board (AKA crock-pot recipes) and found a recipe for Buffalo Chicken Lasagna, which really doesn't even sound that appealing... pasta and buffalo sauce. I was a little skeptical for 2 reasons: 1) I had a bad experience with egg noodles in the crock-pot a long time ago, so I had never tried cooking any other types pasta in the crock-pot...would they cook without water or be mushy for cooking them too long? 2) In the recipe you mix buffalo sauce with pasta sauce!?!...sounded a little gross! However, the blogger really made it sound good and we really love the flavor of buffalo chicken wings so why not, right?

I found the recipe on a cute little blog called, Hot Mama's Blog and she got the recipe from another cute little blog called Domesticated Momma, who got the recipe from a blog called A Year of Slow Cooking... who got the recipe from here. I traced it back as far as I could go to see how many changes were made from the original recipe. There were a few variations but the original source was a lot different. Check out the links to see the differences before you make it because you might like to change something up.

Overall, we really liked the recipe. It was different but very good. You couldn't even tell that the buffalo sauce was mixed with pasta sauce. And the noodles were perfect so I will not be afraid of other recipes that call for cooking noodles in the crock pot....except egg noodles, which as I stated earlier, didn't not turn out so well. They totally broke down to mush and took on a very floury taste.  I served it with the left over Celery Blue Cheese Slaw [See Day 13]. The recipe made a ton so we have plenty leftover for another meal. I read on one blog that it freezes well too. Note: I did use a lot more cheese than what it called for. So here's the recipe from Hot Mama's Blog...enjoy!

 

Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Lasagna 

Ingredients:
- 3 boneless chicken breasts (cooked and chopped – I chopped my very fine)
- 1 Cup Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Sauce
- 828ml of pasta sauce (I used a 28 oz can)
- Uncooked lasagna noodles
- Tub of Ricotta Cheese
- 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/4 cup of water
Optional Ingredients:
- add in 2 sweet bell peppers (not a fan of those in our house so we skipped it)
- We used more cheese than we required too.
Directions:
- In a bowl combine the chicken, buffalo sauce & pasta sauce – this will be called the sauce from here on
- Spray your 5 qt slow cooker with non stick spray
- Ladle a large spoonful of your sauce to cover the bottom of the crock pot
- Add a layer of noodles – you will need to break them up. We like lots of noodles so we doubled up on this step
- Spread a layer of ricotta cheese across the noodles
- Add bell peppers
- Top with cheese
- Repeat the layers until you run out of ingredients.
- On the final layer top with sauce and cheese
- Pour 1/4 cup of water over your lasagna
- Cook on low for 4 to 5 hours or on high for 2.5 to 3 hours.

Modifications (from Domesticated Momma's Blog) 

If you like bleu cheese, add 1/2 a cup of bleu cheese crumbles to the final layer of the lasagna.