Chicken Spaghetti: southern comfort food never tasted this good!

I’ve talked a lot about my Grandmas but now it’s time to give my Momma some credit. One of my favorite dishes is chicken spaghetti and she definitely makes a good one. What I loved about hers was that it was always a little different depending on….you guessed it, what ingredients she happened to have that day. The ingredients that were always consistent? Chicken, spaghetti, cheese…lots and lots of cheese and an assortment of vegetables although what vegetables always varied just a bit. That’s the great thing about this dish, you can change it up by a few ingredients but as long as you have the basics, you have a comfort food that’s good all year round. Below is the recipe that I make most consistently from a few experiments and changes I made throughout the years.

Ingredients:

• Whole chicken
• 1.5lbs spaghetti
• 32oz chicken broth
• 1 large or 2 small white onions diced
• 1 large yellow onion diced
• 3 bell peppers, red, yellow & green diced
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 8oz package of baby bella mushrooms diced
• 1 stock of celery diced
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 1 10.5oz can of cream of chicken soup
• 1 10.5 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 10.5 can cream of celery soup
• 2 10.5 cans of rotel tomatoes (1 mild & 1 original)
• 32oz package of shredded mild cheddar cheese
• Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

• Boil the chicken whole w/ one chopped yellow onion. Once done, take chicken out of the pot, saving the broth that the chicken cooked in.
• Cook the spaghetti in the chicken broth, adding additional chicken broth if needed
• Debone the chicken, shredding the chicken by hand and setting it aside
• In a large skillet, melt 3 tablespoons butter
• Add the white onion, bell peppers & celery. Saute until fragrant
• Add the mushrooms, saute an additional 2-3 minutes; remove from heat
• Combine the chicken, soup, rotel tomatoes, vegetables & spaghetti into a long mixing bowl. Mix all the ingredients together
• Add salt & pepper to taste
• Once all ingredients are mixed well, place in a large glass baking dish
• Cover the spaghetti in cheese, as much as you want as long as the entire dish is covered!
• Cover with foil, baking it for 30 minutes at 375
• Take out the spaghetti, removing foil and bake without foil for an additional 5-7 minutes or until the cheese is nice and bubbly

Additional notes: A lot of folks like to completely eliminate the mushrooms as they aren’t mushrooms fans. That’s fine! Others (like my Mom) include black olives and pimentos, that works too. You can really make this dish your own by eliminating or adding vegetables that work for your family.