Creamy Buffalo Chicken Bake, gluten free and with a vegetarian option

 

Creamy Buffalo Chicken Bake, is full of vegetables, gluten free, and simple to make either on the stovetop or as a casserole. It's the perfect meal for a mid-week dinner and also works well as an easy way to stay relaxed and entertain your dinner guests. I know this is originally an authentic American dish, but this particular recipe is claiming it for the Aussies as well. It's delicious!

This is a recipe that is also easy to adapt to a vegetarian meal if that is your choice, by substituting cauliflower, tofu or both for the chicken. It's also loaded with other yummy vegetables, like capsicum, zucchini and spinach. It's Monday as I write this, and I still try to choose a Meat-free Monday option whenever I can. This recipe makes choosing vegetarian easy.

As you would realise by now, I like to cook most of our meals from scratch. I don't generally buy recipe bases like this one. However, our very discerning no.1 daughter has become a real fan of the Mingle products, and when I found this sachet in her pantry (along with a couple of others I decided to try using it.) The end result, this Creamy Buffalo Chicken Bake was absolutely delicious and quite straight forward to make. I also had a rethink about using these kind of products. 

Being retired from the workforce, I am now in a situation where I have the time to dash to the shops to buy that spice or herb I am needing for the specific meal I am planning. However, not everyone has that luxury during the week, particularly young  people like my daughter who are working in very busy and demanding jobs, and parents with families to cook for. At the end of a long day, who wants to visit the supermarket? And lets face it, most interesting meals require the transforming addition of a couple of herbs and spices. Not everyone has the ability or time to grow their own herbs. Bottled herbs and spices are expensive to buy, and if not used regularly will go stale and lose their oomph. Shannon waits until the Mingle products are advertised on sale at Woolworths, (no advertising intended here) and buys them for about $1.50 a packet or even cheaper, which I think is pretty good. I'm not sure what other products like this one are on the market, but I suspect there are lots, however what sets this one apart is that it has No Nasties in it, and is gluten free, and also provides a good recipe with the packet. 

Serves 4: Prep. time 15 mins: Cook time: 25 mins

Gluten free

Ingredients:

500 g of chicken, or cauliflower or tofu, cut into chunks

1 brown onion, diced

200 g bag of spinach

1 zucchini sliced

3 spring onions, chopped

1 lemon, juiced

1 red capsicum, sliced

150 ml of chicken stock

200 g of low fat cream cheese

200 g of low fat sour cream

1 tbsp tomato paste

150 g of grated cheese

50 g of butter

400 g Rigatoni pasta ( or enough for 4 people)

1 packet Mingle Creamy Buffalo Chicken Bake recipe base

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 deg. C

Melt the butter in a pot over a medium heat. Add the brown onion, tomato paste, and Mingle recipe base. 

Cook for 3 minutes.

Meanwhile cook your pasta for 3 minutes less than the instructions on the packet.

Add chicken to the pot, and cook until browned.

Add the sour cream, cream cheese, lemon juice, stock, and remaining vegetables, except for the spring onion. If your family have an aversion to the spinach for example, leave it out. Vegetable substitutions or omissions work with this recipe.

Cook until the cheese melts.

Transfer the pasta and the sauce mixture to a baking tray. Sprinkle the spring onions over the surface of the dish, then the cheese and bake for 25 minutes. Serve with a wedge of lemon and enjoy.

As it says on the packet, Yummo!

My cooking notes:

• I always include as many vegetables as I can in meals that I cook.
• Ingredients in the all Mingle natural recipe base include: Onion, Garlic, Paprika, Australian Sea Salt, Vitamin C, Cayenne Pepper, Lime Powder, Olive Oil
• Substitute cauliflower or tofu for the chicken
• Mingle products can often be purchased half price at Woolworths for $1.50 each or less

We are enjoying watching the US Open Tennis tournament in New York at the moment, on the television of course, although we would love to be watching it play out live in New York, despite the crowds. The evening session is on, and we can enjoy watching it the following morning from the comfort of our lounge chairs. We have three Aussies remaining in the singles competition, more in the Doubles, which is very exciting and quite unusual, so I am finishing writing here, making a cuppa, and about to watch Alexei Popyrin play Frances Tiafoe, an American tennis player in the fourth round . This should be an exciting match.

 

Warm wishes,

Pauline