I’ve been wanting to develop a white (marinara-less) chicken lasagna for a while now. The problem has always been that the combination of pasta (kind of bland) with bechamel sauce (made from milk and flour = white and bland) and chicken (also bland) was just too…do I really have to say it?
Recently I noticed Jessica Merchant’s French Onion Chicken Lasagna Roll Ups on How Sweet Eats, and I thought her use of caramelized onions was an ingenious way to add interest and depth of flavor to a chicken lasagna. Then I remembered a recipe I used to make years ago that featured crepes stuffed with chicken and sauteed mushrooms, baked between layers of Swiss-cheesy Mornay sauce. With those two recipes for inspiration, this Four Cheese Chicken and Mushroom Lasagna was born.
For color, I chose to keep the green on the outside and serve this lasagna with a side of fresh green beans. You could do as Jessica Merchant did and use spinach instead of mushrooms in the filling if you prefer.
There are a lot of separate process steps that go into making this lasagna, so it is a bit of a project, but the whole dish can be made ahead and the steps can even be spread out over multiple days to make it easier on you.
There are three layers of filling between the layers of pasta. The first layer (shown on the left below) starts with a smear of ricotta and Parmesan cheeses, which you’ll top with a scattering of caramelized onions, crisp salty pancetta, and sauteed mushrooms. The second layer (shown on the right below) is shredded white meat chicken blended with creamy bechamel sauce and a combination of Jarlsberg and Gruyere cheeses (bechamel + cheese = a deconstructed Mornay sauce).
The third layer repeats the first layer. Then comes the final tier of noodles, topped off with more bechamel and another shower of the grated cheese.
The inner layers of this lasagna bake up soft and silky but the top, with its thick cap of cheese, gets bubbly, brown and crusty.
Making this ahead and what to do with leftovers:
- The entire dish can be assembled ahead, covered with foil, and refrigerated overnight unbaked. Let the lasagna sit out at room temperature for an hour before baking, or add 15 minutes to the foil-covered portion of the baking time, to compensate for the cold starting temperature.
- Many components of the dish can be made even further ahead, and stored separately until you’re ready to put everything together. This includes: sauteeing the pancetta, caramelizing the onions, sauteeing the mushrooms, mixing the ricotta filling, shredding the hard cheeses, and making the bechamel. See? That’s most of the work – done. Of all of these components, the only one that needs special care if making it ahead is the bechamel. It needs to be pourable for assembly, so reheat it gently over low heat on the stove before proceeding. Everything else can be assembled cold.
- Leftovers will be firmer and a little drier than when freshly-baked, making for neat slices that reheat well in the microwave or in a 300-degree oven. What leftovers might lack (slightly) in creamy texture, they make up for in flavor, as an overnight rest helps the flavors to blend and deepen in a good way.
Four Cheese Chicken Lasagna
Ingredients
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 4 ounces diced pancetta
- 1 large red onion, thinly sliced (about 2 cups sliced)
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided, plus additional for the dish
- 8 ounces cremini mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed and sliced
- 1 large garlic clove, minced
- 1½ teaspoons minced fresh thyme, divided
- 12 lasagna noodles (traditional, not no-boil)
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 cups whole milk
- 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
- 12 ounces ricotta
- 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
- 1 large egg
- 8 ounces (about 2½ cups) shredded cooked chicken breast
- 4 ounces Swiss cheese (such as Jarlsberg), shredded
- 4 ounces Gruyere cheese, shredded
Directions
- Step 1 Butter an 8-inch square baking dish and set it aside.
- Step 2 Place a medium skillet over medium-low heat and add a swirl of olive oil to the cold skillet. Add the pancetta. Cook the pancetta, stirring occasionally, until crisp. Remove the pancetta to a small plate with a slotted spoon.
- Step 3 To the oil in the skillet, add the onions, and season with a generous pinch of kosher salt and a couple of grinds of black pepper. Slowly cook the onions over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until they’re soft and golden, about 35 minutes. Add the sugar. Cook 5 minutes more, then add the vinegar and cook 1 minute. Remove the onions to the same plate as the pancetta.
- Step 4 Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in the same skillet (no need to clean it out in between), or to save time use a second skillet and cook the mushrooms simultaneously with the onions. Raise the heat under the skillet to medium. Add the mushrooms, season them with salt and pepper, and saute them until they’re soft and browned, and all the liquid they let off has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and 1 teaspoon of the thyme and cook for 2 minutes. Remove the skillet with the mushrooms from the heat and set it aside.
- Step 5 Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add a handful of salt and the lasagna noodles. Cook the noodles for the amount of time indicated on the package, then drain them. Line a large baking sheet with wax paper and have it standing by. As soon as the noodles are cool enough to handle, trim each piece to 8 inches long, and lay all the lasagna pieces out in a single layer on the wax paper and set them aside.
- Step 6 Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Step 7 Make the bechamel sauce: Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and stir with a whisk until it forms a paste. Cook for 2 minutes, whisking frequently. Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly. Cook the sauce, whisking constantly, until it comes to a simmer and thickens, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and the nutmeg. Set the sauce aside.
- Step 8 In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, the Parmesan and the egg until the mixture is smooth.
- Step 9 In another medium bowl, combine the Swiss and Gruyere and toss to combine.
- Step 10 Place the shredded chicken in a third bowl.
- Step 11 Assemble the lasagna in 9 layers, as follows: Layer 1: Spoon ½ cup of the bechamel sauce into the bottom of the prepared baking dish, spreading it out evenly.
- Step 12 Layer 2: Lay 3 noodles side by side in the bottom of the dish.
- Step 13 Layer 3: Top the noodles with half of the ricotta mixture, spreading it out to a thin layer and covering the noodles completely. Sprinkle half of the mushrooms, half of the onions, and half of the pancetta over the ricotta, distributing them evenly.
- Step 14 Layer 4: Turn the dish ¼ turn and lay down 3 more noodles, so they’re going perpendicular to the layer below.
- Step 15 Layer 5: Measure out ½ cup of bechamel sauce and set it aside. Add the remaining bechamel to the shredded chicken, along with 2/3 of the grated cheese mixture. Stir to combine the chicken, sauce and cheese. Spread this mixture out over the noodles.
- Step 16 Layer 6: Turn the dish ¼ turn and lay down 3 more noodles perpendicular to the layer below.
- Step 17 Layer 7: Spread the remaining ricotta over the noodles and top with the remaining mushrooms, onions and pancetta.
- Step 18 Layer 8: Turn the dish ¼ turn and add the last 3 noodles.
- Step 19 Layer 9: Spread the remaining ½ cup of bechamel over the noodles. Add the remaining ½ teaspoon of thyme to the remaining grated cheese and scatter this mixture evenly over the top.
- Step 20 Cover the dish tightly with foil. Bake the lasagna for 45 minutes.
- Step 21 Remove the foil, drizzle the top of the lasagna with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, and bake 15 to 20 more minutes. For the last minute or two, switch the oven to the Roast setting or turn on the broiler, to get the top nice and brown and bubbly.
- Step 22 Move the lasagna to a cooling rack and cover the top loosely with foil. Let the lasagna sit for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.
