This is similar to our Chicken, Bacon & Cranberry Lasagne recipe but with a few changes. Just because the title says it is “Festive” it doesn’t mean its just for Christmas, this can totally be enjoyed any time of the year. This is one of our most popular recipes and has been featured lots of times over the years on our social media platforms. This has been a classic meal we make to use up leftovers for over 8 years so it is widely enjoyed in our house.
As always feel free to swap cheese to your favourites and use shop brought sauces if you don’t want to make your own.
Some recommended items from our kitchen to make this dish…
- A big time saver for chopping veg with a veg chopper, from onions to carrots this is a god send to chop quickly.
- Double sided dry and liquid measuring spoons for times when you need to measure both liquid and dry ingredients.
- Cheese grater with varying grater sizes.
- A decent set of knives for chopping, with a knife sharpener which is always handy.
- A lot of our dishes are pyrex, great for cooking. Perfect for roasters too and easy to clean.
- Non-stick milk pan as I love having the lip to make it easier to pour without spillage.
- Silicone whisks in varying sizes.
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Serves 4
INGREDIENTS:
- Dried lasagne pasta sheets
Filling:
- 4 chicken breasts, diced small
- 4 slices smoked bacon, fat removed and diced
- 10 – 15 brussel sprouts, shredded
- 4 tablespoons cranberry sauce (we make our own but use shop brought if you prefer)
- 50g stuffing (made up as per instruction weight)
- 4 Heck Chicken Italia chipolatas, chopped in bite sized pieces
White sauce:
- 25g Clover light
- 2 tablespoons cornflour
- 200ml whole milk
- 30g parmesan cheese, grated
- 1 tablespoon dried sage
You will also need:
- 80g light mature cheddar
- 8 Heck chicken italia chipolatas
- 4 bacon medallions, fat removed
METHOD:
- Preheat oven 180°C fan.
- Par boil the pasta sheets in boiling water until almost cooked.
- In a heavy bottomed saucepan sauté the sprouts and bacon for a few minutes, add the chicken and chipolatas and cook till starting to brown.
- Make your sauce…In a milk pan melt the butter over a medium heat, add a little milk to the cornflour to make a paste then mix the rest of the milk in.
- Whisk the milk gradually into the melted butter and simmer until thickened, whisk in the dried sage and add a little water to thin it down if it gets too thick.
- Whisk in the cheese and bring to a steady simmer and simmer on a low heat for a few minutes continuously stirring until the cheese is melted, season with salt and pepper if needed.
- Pour the majority of the sauce into the chicken and bacon mixture and stir and reserve 1 third of the sauce for now.
- Slice the bacon medallions in half, twist the chipolatas in half and cut through the twisted skin, wrap each halved chipolata with the bacon, place in an oven proof dish.
- In another oven proof dish layer up your lasagne. Add the creamy chicken mixture, dot around a little of the cranberry sauce and stuffing, then a layer of pasta, then more chicken mix and more cranberry and stuffing and repeat until you run out of ingredients.
- Add the reserved sauce to the top layer and add the cheddar evenly over the top.
- Place both the lasagne and “chicks” in blankets in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes or until everything is bubbling and cooked.
- Take out the oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes before cutting and serving with the “chicks” in blankets.
- Serve alongside some tender stem broccoli for a tasty meal.
NOTES:
- If you are not keen on sprouts you can swap to cabbage or leeks also work well in this dish.
- Any stuffing mix works well in this, we enjoy a cranberry and orange stuffing which we usually find in Tesco but bog standard sage and onion is just fine.
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