Chicken Bacon Ranch Casserole

A couple of weeks ago, I shared with you this post about Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta.  While I thought it was a win, Boyfriend enjoyed it but was under the impression it was more of a casserole than just pasta and sauce.  As a result, I took to twitter and found this recipe to try.

Chicken Bacon Ranch Casserole

The link Pinterest connected to can be found here.

Ingredients

1 lb. bacon, fried and crumbled (The blog I found it from used bacon bits)

2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken 

2 tablespoons of ranch seasoning

1 lb. bow tie pasta

2 jars of Alfredo sauce

1/3 cup of evaporated milk or regular milk

4 cups shredded Italian cheese blend

Directions

Cut chicken into cubes. Mix in ranch mix, evaporated milk and half a jar of alfredo sauce. 

Cook pasta al dente. Drain and return to pan. 

Pour half of a jar of Alfredo sauce into bottom of 9x13 baking dish. Spread evenly. 

Begin layering casserole starting with half of noodles, then half the chicken mix, half of the second jar of Alfredo sauce, half the bacon, and half the cheese. 

Repeat layers with remaining ingredients.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 

Notes

This was a fairly last minute idea.  I had most of the ingredients on hand but not quite the same amounts as what was called for.  I used a bit less than 1.5 lbs of chicken, 6 slices of bacon, 1 jar of Alfredo (I actually had 2 I could've used but didn't, mainly because it looked like 1 jar was plenty and when it was all said and done - 1 jar tasted like plenty), and 2 cups of cheese (I had 1 cup of cheddar from my previous Chicken Bacon Ranch adventure and used 1 cup of mozzarella).

Even with the lesser amount of ingredients, 30 minutes wasn't a long enough bake time.  The chicken was not cooked all the way through when I took it out.

All things considered, it tasted pretty good.  Boyfriend liked this better than the first chicken bacon ranch pasta.  I think I disagree. I'm not sure if it was the Classico Alfredo I used or what but something in the creamy sauce wasn't working for me personally. It's not that I didn't like it, I just didn't like it as much.

It worked out to feeding both of us Sunday night - two larger portions for him, 2 smaller for me.  Also gave a lunch portion for me and a slightly larger lunch portion for him.

I think next time, I'm going to try to take the previous pasta recipe and add more cheese and bake it like a casserole to kinda give the best of both.  We'll see how that works out.

Here, have a picture:

I forgot to take a picture Sunday night but it was as tasty as leftovers Monday.