Sara and I may or may not have shared the story about how this blog came to be, but if we have, it was a long time ago and I’m sure there are some of you who haven’t heard the story.
My husband and I got married as broker-than-broke college students, so the summer after we got married, we went to Seattle, his hometown, so he could paint houses and we could save up some cash. The whole time we were there, I kept hearing about this magical Sara who went to church with my husband’s family, only she was living in Brazil at the time.
Well, fast-forward a few years when my husband’s little brother was dating Magical Sara, only she was doing an internship in California. I still hadn’t met her, but after a long weekend with my brother-in-law, I felt like I did because he literally did not stop talking about her the whole time.
Well, Sara and my brother-in-law broke up and married other people and I didn’t really hear about Magical Sara for awhile. A few years later, when my oldest was a few months old, I started posting occasionally on a mommy message board. There was a girl there who had pretty much the exact same taste in recipes that I did; we even had nearly identical recipes that we had each made up. Well, one day we started chatting a little and I realized she was Magical Sara (and she realized who I was; there was no one-way stalking here, although I will say that my internet stalking skills are exceptional). Over the course of a few years, we became good friends and recipe buddies and bam, a blog was born. I’m just glad it ended up being her and not some creeper with a taste for lime and garlic.
Anyway, the reason why I’m telling you all this story is because there are so many times when we each work on a recipe, post it on the calendar that we share, and realize that we have something nearly identical due to post within a week. Our brain-sharing is a gift. And a curse.
Take, for instance, Sara’s Baked Chicken Penne that she posted a few months ago. That recipe and this one were scheduled to post within literally one week of each other. They’re different enough to stand alone as their own recipes, but still, I didn’t think y’all needed 2 baked chicken Alfredo dishes in a 7-day period, you know?
One really great thing about this dish is that you can use up a whole bunch of leftovers all at once. Leftover grilled chicken?
Made too much bacon (hey, it could happen!)? Have some cheese leftover from pizza night? Bought one of those double-packs of green onions at Walmart and the rest are about to go bad? You’re taken care of!
But if you don’t have all that stuff, just marinate some chicken breasts in a little Italian dressing for a few hours before grilling it, heat up your oven for some bacon, and you’re good to go.
My other favorite thing about this is that it can be made ahead of time and either refrigerated or frozen until you’re ready to serve it. If you don’t plan on eating it immediately, cover tightly with plastic wrap and aluminum foil. If you cook it from the refrigerator, preheat oven to 400 and bake for 45 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly and the pasta is heated through. If you’re cooking it from the freezer, bake at 400 for about 90 minutes.
8 oz. penne or bowtie pasta
1 recipe Guiltless Alfredo Sauce (1 16-oz. jar would work in a pinch)
2 chicken breasts, grilled and chopped (about 2 c. chopped chicken)
6 oz. (1/2 package) cooked bacon, chopped
1 14-oz. jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1/2 c. chopped green onions (about 1 decent-sized bunch)
1 c. shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions:
Questions & Reviews
I have been making this recipe since Home Ec 2 in Jr year of high school 11 years ago (2012)! About once or twice a year I just HAVE to make this dish and I always come back. Thank you!
Oh my gosh, crazy!
Hi Kate, This looks delicious and I want to try it, but I do have a question. Is there anything I can use in place of the marinated artichokes? Or will it be ok to just leave them out (we don’t like them). Thanks for any help you can give me. Have a Blessed Day.
Sure!!! Just go ahead and leave them out if you’d rather. 🙂
This was great!
I LOVE this recipe and love to make it when I have company. I also love the guiltless alfredo sauce and use it all the time for other recipes as well. Can you fix the link to the guiltless alfredo sauce on this page? Thanks!
Yum!! Thanks for such a good recipe! I needed something I could make really quick, and this one caught my eye. I skipped the chicken and just used jarred alfredo sauce, but it was still really good and I’ll definitely make it again!
So many times I see a recipe that calls for marinated artichokes when what they really mean is artichokes packed in water (or frozen ones), not in a marinade. Is that what you intended? Just didn’t want that oil and vinegar taste if it’s not supposed to be there. Thanks!
The marinated ones. 🙂
I am on spring break so I’m cooking one of your recipes each night! Hooray for being a stay at home mom (of dogs) for a week. I have this in the oven now, and already ate about a serving before I put it in there. Oops.
So excited to have found this site. Thank you! I’m not an experienced cook. Can you tell me where to find how many people this recipe will feed? Thank you again!
What’s the serving recommendation on this recipe, and have you ever tried tomatoes with it?
I made this last night and my 2 year old ate 4 helpings I was shocked! It was great and defidently a repeat in our house. Thanks Sara!
I don’t usually leave comments, but this recipe was fabulous! Our whole family loved it. Thanks for a great low-fat alfredo sauce too!
My kids and husband loved this and I like the fact that you can hide other veggies in this. Loving your website with all of the great recipes.
This was excellent! It made two wonderful meals! Thank you so much!
Posted a vegetarian version of this today. It is really good, even without the meat! Thanks for the recipe!
genius. loved it. I ended up not doing any chicken- would have taken me too long- added some diced pepperoni, diced tomato and red onion, and omitted the artichoke hearts (dont normally have those) and it was so good. i’m definitely doing this again, and this is totally an easy recipe to increase or decrease! loved it.
My family all loved this recipe. Thanks for sharing
A friend made this without bacon and chicken tonight for my vegetarian self and it was delicious and very flavorful as a vegetarian recipe!!
Great twist on a classic baked alredo!!! So good!!
I love this recipe. So I wanted to make this for dinner but already had pasta for lunch. I decided to use all your same ingredients and made it into a pizza and followed your grilled pizza tutorial. I am the biggest fan of grilled pizza now. Esp. bacon, chicken, artichoke, alfredo pizza. You girls are amazing. It was so delicious!!!
Made this for dinner tonight and it was soo good! The whole fam liked it. Not too hard to put together, either; I assembled it in the afternoon and my husband put it in the oven while I was away- all ready to eat when I got home!
I never like to alter your recipes because I think you do such an awesome job combining all the flavors, but I had a bunch of stuff in my fridge I needed to use up. SO I did a few swap-outs on some ingredients and made a dish I could make ahead to serve to company and it was a complete success. Of course I also made your rosemary focaccia to go along with. Great, prep-ahead dinner!! Thanks … again, for being amazing!!
This was amazing! I didn’t have artichoke so I used some sundried tomatoes instead. So good and the best part is my kids loved it too. Thank you!