The Healthy Tales

Posts Tagged ‘Chicken Spaghetti’

Happy Labor Day Weekend!  I’ve taken the day off to run errands – mostly involving my name change.  Bleh!  I hope it will be fast and painless but these are government agencies so you never know what to expect.

My recipe for today is a family favorite.  By family favorite, I mean my entire mother’s side of the family.  I don’t know who developed this recipe or when we started eating it but you can’t pry our fingers away from a pot when it has been cooked.  Normally you have to make 2 batches for us crazy people – 1 to eat immediately and 1 to freeze.

When my grandmother was sick, we use to joke with her that this recipe had special healing powers.  She would go in once a month to have her chemo treatment.  She always picked the first Sunday of the month.  She would feel terrible the rest of Sunday and through Tuesday.  Wednesday was my day off at the time other than Sunday so I would always go over to visit on both of those days.  On chemo week, my mother and I would gather all of the ingredients for this recipe and get to work in her kitchen while she rested and then when it was done we’d bring her a big bowl and she would start feeling better.   I don’t think this recipe really has healing powers but she always knew once she had chicken spaghetti she would be on the upswing the rest of the month.  I guess it was just a small thing to look forward to.

Chicken Spaghetti

• chicken (you can use anywhere from 1 breast to a 1.25 lb of chicken breasts)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 stick oleo or butter (you can cut this or eliminate it – I normally eliminate)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 can tomato soup
• 1 can died rotel (regular or mild)
• 1 pound of Velveeta Cheese (look for the light or 2% package)
• 1 package of vermicelli noodles

1. Boil chicken with 1 bay leaf until cooked (~30 to 45 mins). Let cool
2. Saute onion in butter in an oven safe soup or stock pot
3. Shred your chicken into small pieces
4. Add Can of Tomato soup and can of Rotel into onion pot.  Stir until mixed.
5. Start boiling your noodles.  Boil in same water that chicken was boiled in to add flavor
6. Chop your Velveeta cheese into small chunks.  Start adding to soupy mix.  Stir until melted.  Add more, Stir.  Repeat until all cheese has been incorporated and is fully melted (very important!!)
7. Add in Chicken to mixture.
8. Drain noodles.
9. Add cooked noodles into cheesy chicken mixture and mix very well.  Make sure all noodles are coated and mixture is throughout the mass of noodles.
10. Bake in oven at 350 degrees until the mixture bubbles.  Normally this is 10-15 minutes.  Not very long at all

I don’t have all the nutritional information on this recipe but if you stick with a 1 cup serving it is 6 Weight Watcher points.  This recipe makes 6-8 servings depending on how big your 1 cup serving is.