I should’ve realized, when posting tasty photos of lunch on Instagram, that it’s only fair to include a recipe. Recipe? We don’t need no steenkin’ recipe…
Well, maybe you do. Because it’s as yummy as it looks. But before we start, just know that I made this up. Years ago, a friend posted a recipe for turkey roll-ups, and it started out kind of like this, but I have branched out. I improvised. Improvisation is half the fun, 90% of the time.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 can Kirkland chicken
- 3/4 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
- 2-3 T. Philadelphia cream cheese
- 1/2 cup Mexican blend shredded cheese
- 1 T. butter
- 5-6 baby Portobello mushrooms, chopped
- 1/4 cup red onion, chopped
- 1/4 cup purple cabbage, chopped
- 2 large stalks celery, chopped
- 6 pieces lasagna noodles
- 1 1/2 cups spaghetti sauce
- 1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 375ºF. Grease a casserole or small baking dish with extra virgin olive oil and add about half the spaghetti sauce to cover the bottom.
- Sauté onion in butter. Add chopped mushrooms, celery, and cabbage and sauté until vegetables are softened, but not overcooked. Remove from heat and let cool.
- In a large bowl, mix cheeses and chicken well. Mix in the vegetables.
- Boil lasagna noodles until they can just be rolled without cracking. Lay lasagna noodles out an inch or two apart on parchment paper.
- Drop chicken, cheese, and veggie filling onto the noodles, lengthwise, by large teaspoonfuls. Roll each noodle from a short end – not too loosely, but without squishing the filling out the sides. It helps to lift the noodle slightly as you roll it. Without letting it unroll, place the roll-up into the baking dish, (You should be able to fit 6-8 roll-ups into the dish; they should be snugly nestled against each other, but not so tightly you’ll have to pry them out with a crowbar to serve!) If there’s excess filling, spoon it over the roll-ups or, if there’s room in the baking dish, make a few more!
- Spoon the remainder of the spaghetti sauce evenly over the roll-ups.
- Cover loosely with foil and bake for 40 minutes.
- Top with a little shredded cheese and return to oven for 5-8 minutes, until it’s melted. Serve with tossed salad.
Each roll-up is approximately 300 calories (this is based on the recipe making 6 of them). If you try this, let me know how it turns out. It’s good with browned ground turkey and basil, instead of chicken, too. Maybe try it with ground beef, one of these days. Come on back here and let me know how it turns out, and what your favorite improvisations are.
I’m taking part in Anita Ojeda’s #Write28Days. Today’s prompt was “ease.” Worked out well, because I’d already promised someone I’d post this easy recipe!
Wow that looks yummy! And the recipe sounds yummy too. It almost makes me want to start cooking again. I have delegated that to my maid and she does a really job of it, much better than me.
Sunita Saldhana recently posted…Republic Day 2022
Then show your maid the recipe. 😏 There’s a lot of room for improvisation there, so encourage her to play with the idea. Do share with me the results – wouldn’t it be fun to do a collection of recipes having variations on the same theme? The nice thing about these lasagna rolls is that they make it easy to portion it out for meals.
I will teach her how to make it. Will let you know how it turns out
Sunita Saldhana recently posted…Republic Day 2022
Have you tried these, yet?
Looks delicious – and yes, easy!
So easy! As I said to Mitchell, they keep pretty well, too. I’ve frozen them before.
That is mouth-watering! I’m bookmarking this. If I try it, I will be sure to let you know.
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitchell Allen recently posted…The Cryptarchy
It’s surprisingly easy and it’s a fun way to make lasagna – you can get creative with the fillings, and it results in nice, individual portions that are easy to put up and reheat later. (I rarely make enough to bother, but I have frozen them after cooking, too. They keep.)
We reheat lasagna all the time, using the oven instead of the microwave, and it always tastes great.
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitchell Allen recently posted…I Embraced My Inner Weirdo
Yes, usually ovens reheat things best.
I’m just amazed, though, at all the things that freeze well. Like…bread. Who knew?
Cheese and scrapple don’t. Sigh.
We bought a vacuum sealer. That’s useful.
But not for cheese and scrapple.
Cheers,
Broken Record
Mitchell Allen recently posted…I Embraced My Inner Weirdo
Hahahaahahahaha…no, I cannot imagine that would be good. I’ll find out tomorrow if my homemade cinnamon rolls are freezable, like the recipe claims they are.
We freeze homemade cinnamon rolls, homemade pizza and homemade pretzels. All of them taste great when reheated in the oven.
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitchell Allen recently posted…Donor
I know that my mother and my grandmothers would just roll their eyes, but I hardly used my freezer for anything that didn’t come frozen from the grocery store for years. (So many things now say “previously frozen” and “do not refreeze” and it was just a lack of food safety confidence and know-how on my part.) The first discovery was that you could basically toss a banana in there and then peel it with a paring knife later for smoothies. Then it was bread from Costco – we couldn’t possibly use it all up without freezing some. Not sure I’d do donuts. But then again… maybe? It still seems like heresy to do it to a good steak, but…maybe? It’s a whole new world for a kid who grew up believing her father would leave and not look back if leftovers were served. 😉 (Just kidding, Dad. But seriously: leftovers, meatloaf, rutabaga – food heresy, growing up.)
As a child, the freezer was a wasteland of frost that I occasionally navigated in order to get ice cubes from those awful metal trays. Otherwise, I had no business in there. 🙂
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitchell Allen recently posted…Monopoly: House Rules
A child of the same era! 🤣