This dish is healthier than your average casserole, but every bit as comforting! Everyday Food editor Sarah Carey shows you how to assemble and bake this new favorite.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain; return to pot. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium-high. Add onion and garlic; cook until onion is beginning to soften, 4 minutes. Add kale, cover, and cook until almost tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to pot with pasta.
Stir in chicken, ricotta, lemon zest, and 1/2 cup Parmesan; season with salt and pepper. Transfer mixture to a 9-by-13-inch baking dish; top with 1/4 cup Parmesan. Bake until top is golden, 30 minutes.
I love the recipe when I read it so I had to try it. Instead of plain shredded chicken, I sauteed the raw chicken with the onions and garlic and added some thyme to boost the flavor. I also felt it needed some textural crunch so I topped it with panko crumbs and parmesan cheese. The minor changes worked out for me.
This dish was good; but I'll agree with the other reviewers, I thought it could use more flavor. I personally had no issues with the amount of ricotta; I made a half recipe in a smaller casserole dish, and the consistency came out fine.
I found this really bland and dry. I anticipated the dryness and added about a half cup of chicken stock, but it was still pretty dry. And an herb of some sort would have really added to this dish -- sage, thyme, even tarragon. Next time I will up the chicken stock, add more salt and add some fresh herbs.
This was really really good! So easy and I loved the lemon flavor in this dish. Can't get much easier than this recipe.
I shared this dish with a neighbor and they really liked it too.
Yummy!
Taking note of other reviewers' comments about the amount of ricotta, I only bought one 15-oz carton and it wasn't enough to moisten the chicken, pasta and kale. I happened to have a 17-oz carton of mascarpone so I added about half of the carton to the mixture and that improved the consistency a lot. I also seasoned the kale and the chicken as I went along, again noting reviewers' comments about blandness. Still, I wasn't wild about the dish; will finish eating it but not make this dish again
Made this last night and wasn't a huge fan as I thought it was lacking in favor and drier than I hoped--perhaps using an egg/cheese in the ricotta would have made this creamier. I think it could use some mushrooms in the mix too. This is the first dish I haven't been a big fan of....not sure I would make again.
This is REALLY good - it's going into the rotation as a way to get Kale into my diet without it tasting like, well, Kale... which I find bitter. Yeah, there's a typo - 48 ounces of ricotta is excessive. I substituted a 500g container of 1% Nordica cottage cheese, which I strained through cheesecloth to reduce the moisture. (I live in Canada, cottage cheese where you live may be different, so proceed with caution!)
Also I only needed 1 bunch of Kale, maybe it was a big one, though.
I made the mistake of using fat free ricotta. It did not turn out well at all. The fat free makes a very dry mix. I did use 3 - 15 oz containers. I am going to make notes from you gals and try a bit of sherry and the cherry tomatoes sound like a great addition, tool
This recipe is a keeper. First, I can confirm that there must be a type-o in the ingredients -- I used a 15oz container of ricotta and it was plenty for the full recipe. For extra flavor, I followed the previous tip and used a bit of sherry. Also added a quarter cup of seasoned whole wheat breadcrumbs on top. A bit of fresh lemon before serving worked great too.
This recipe was my first time cooking kale -- and it was quite good. I cut it back to make only three servings, and noting that the previous reviewer thought it needed more flavor, I deglazed the pan with sherry and added a few shakes of Worchestire sauce when stirring in the ricotta cheese. Only used a small container of ricotta (15 oz) -- 48 oz seems like a lot, even if making the full recipe for 8 servings.
I was a bit disappointed by this recipe. It tastes like all of the parts that are in it, but hasn't melded together. Perhaps it's because we didn't use a rotissere chicken... maybe the saltness would have helped the dish. We just baked some chicken breasts and found the whole thing rather boring. Added sauted garlic and cherry tomatoes to the leftovers and that helped somewhat.