food processor lasagna

Three weeks running we have successfully had a nice Sunday night family dinner. Last night I made lasagna while Justin took the girls to the park. I love cooking this lasagna. I made up this recipe after trying other chicken lasagnas and not really being satisfied with the end results. I use the food processor for two steps in the recipe. It's super easy and kid friendly food since my daughter can't pick out large chunks of food. I find that Addie doesn't pick at her food if she can't find large chunks of things in it. Plus the Cuisinart is so much faster than chopping the chicken in small pieces.

I start by sauteing onion, garlic, and herbs in olive oil. I always use fresh basil and parsley. I add four large chicken breasts and then a can of diced tomatoes and the juice. I let the chicken simmer until cooked through. I pull out the chicken and pulse it through the food processor so it's finely chopped and then add it back to the tomato/onion/garlic mixture and mix. I also mix the ricotta cheese layer in the food processor. I just blend the ricotta, an egg, and a good amount of fresh parsley. I use Barilla no boil lasagna noodles and just dip them in a bowl of water before layering them so they don't suck up all the sauce mixture and dry out the lasagna while baking. I then layer the jarred tomato sauce (2 of those tiny Barilla jars), chicken mixture, noodle, ricotta layer, mozzarella cheese, etc. and repeat until it's gone. I finish it off with the noodles, sauce, and mozzarella on top. This time I grated the cheese instead of slice and used much less cheese. The lasagna is creamy from the herb infused ricotta but not too heavy and thick cause I use just the minimal amount of mozzarella. I bake it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees and serve with herb garlic bread.

Addie helped me pull off parsley and fresh basil leaves which I chopped with fresh garlic. I melted butter and drizzled in between the bread slices. Addie then shoved the herbs and garlic in between the slices. We wrapped the loaf sides with foil and put it in the oven. We like the top crispy so we leave the foil off the top. The meal turned out super yummy and I heard zero complaints about not liking this or that in the lasagna. That's a successful meal in my book. No photo of the finished product since I forgot and then once we ate half of it, the lasagna wasn't photo worthy. Best news is that's there is enough leftovers we can have it for dinner tonight.